His New Little Prey
by DiaVampireBait
Summary: ""LEAVE ME ALONE!" I screamed like crazy at him, covering my ears with both of my hands. As a reply to that, he snickered silently, as he knew all too well how that drives me insane. He was never going to leave me. A pursuer never abandon its prey until the hunt is over." WARNING: SAKAMAKI RAITO (that is one important warning), RAPE, ABUSE, DARK, SADISM AND FILLED WITH OTHER STUFF!
1. A Tiny Sneak Peek

_**Okay, I know that I shouldn't begin with another story right now, but I couldn't help myself. I couldn't stop thinking about it, so here's just a short prologue of what we'll be dealing with.**_

I am not what you may think I am.

No man a fairytale's brought.

I'm a beast, a cruel monster.

With a sadistic, dirty thought.

Don't want to be my pray, oh no.

You want a normal life.

You're not as innocent as you think you are.

You're yearning for the knife.

I saw how much you love that man.

I swear to cause him pain.

Don't waste time on protecting him.

It will soon be all in vain.

You think that you can flee from me.

You think that you can run.

You do the struggle, you love the battle.

But that's part of my fun.

You do all you can to escape from me.

You fight, you run, you scream.

And yet, there's no way out for you.

From our nasty, little dream.

I can't seem to stop to follow you.

On roads, In dreams, In skies.

And you know you truly want me.

I can see right through your eyes.

I'm waiting for you to notice it.

How I'm lurking in your shadow.

Tell me what it was that you were doing.

Making that bow and arrow.

I can see how badly you want to kill me.

To make me disappear.

So why can't you see how futile it is.

Since in your dreams, I'll still be clear.

Can't you see how much I want you?

Can't you see that I truly do?

I will never leave your side, you see.

Because recently, I've started to love you.

_**I'm not good at poems, yes, I know that... But I'm still kinda happy with it. It turned out better than what I had magined. Oh, and is there anyone that knows how to draw? If I could draw well, I would give you a picture of my Ocs and maybe even some pictures on moments in the stories, but, haha, I can't. So sorry, all of you that have asked me to give you pictures, I really can't do that...**_


	2. I Was Only Making A Suggestion

_So, I've decided to continue this since many people seemed to be interested in it (okay, mostly it's because I listened to some songs and I got in the mood for some creepy stalk-writing). I'd always really loved the idea of a stalking Raito, ever since you know... When he creepily answers the phone even though Yui wasn't calling him... And he followed her everywhere...  
Yeah, that really got to me~! And also since my favorite books ever in the whole wide world is about a girl getting stalked by a really hot, intellectual, manipulative, and sly guy~. You really should read it, I'm serious.  
Especially if you like this story, since it's strongly based on the book "FEARSCAPE" by Nenia Campbell. You can read it online._

_Anyway, as you probably know, this story will not be fluffy, nor will it have a good end. It will be bloody, abusing, violent, sadistic, and involve rape. Please do not say that I didn't warn ya.  
I don't even know if I could say this since they aren't really a couple, but anyway:  
SAKAMAKI RAITO X HARUMI YUKA = RAIKA!  
RATED: T FOR NOW (DEFINITELY M LATER ON!)_

_Let's begin!_

As usual, it was dark on the street tonight. Well, I always had to walk home in the dark, but I would probably never grow to particularly like it much. Every shadow looked like a person, and at the same time, every person looked like a part of a shadow. That made it hard to separate people from shadows, and shadows from people. That was probably the biggest reason of my hate towards walking down this very same, old, worn street every night.  
But I had to, even if it was later than usual this time. Though, the only one to blame for that was myself. If you stay after class to finish undone work, there's no surprise that you'd come home later.

I took a new, firm grip against my books and drawings.  
Four days a week, I always studied at my Literature class. And since it did take a lot of my time and mind, it had a big influence on me. Language became my best subject in school, both Japanese and English. This made my mother incredibly proud of me, even my step dad praises me for it. That's not why I continued though, it's because I love writing and reading.  
Speaking of mother, I wonder if she'll be upset when I get home. I didn't tell her about staying late there, she might be worried. Mother doesn't even particularly like me going there, it's my never-present dad that pays for it. She only likes the fact that I get good grades and says that it's because I read a lot, not because of the class that I attend.

_Ah! Someone's there? Or is it another shadow? _  
There certainly was someone or something there, further down the street. It looked like a person, it couldn't possibly be the shadow of the old, yellow houses, could it?  
I once had a friend that lived here when I was about six-years-old. I even remembered where she lived, it was right in that red brick house I'd passed maybe five minutes ago. She may have been a lot older than me, but we had a really fun time together before she found a new friend her own age. I was still kinda upset about that, though not even remembering her name. How can you be so angry for something like that when you can't even recall what your friend's name was?

Before I knew it, I bumped into something. _Not again! _I always space out, entering my dreamworld, before making a fool out of myself and even piss people off. I barely dared look up whom I'd bumped into and angered this time, but the person could have gotten hurt just as well.  
So I slowly turned my head upwards, preparing for any kind of scolding from maybe an angry old lady. I knew that I'd seen someone on the street, if I'd only been a bit more attentive.

"I'm so sorry, I should ha-" I began to say, but as soon as my gaze wondered over the angry old lady's face, I saw that it wasn't an old lady, nor was it angry. What I saw shocked me, and interrupted my apology at the same time.

The person standing in front of me was a green-eyed guy, only one or two years older than myself. And he didn't look bothered by getting bumped by little, ignorant me. On the contrary, he looked utterly amused by the whole situation, and for a minute, I felt as if _**he'd bumped into me on purpose just for the fun of it.**_  
But of course, the smirking face with the narrow, playful, **_threatening _**eyes could only be my imagination mixed together with the dark and the streetlights that caused a spooky shadow over his pale face. It had to be, I was being ridiculous today. He was just an ordinary boy with an ordinary school uniform – _see, he's even a student, there's nothing to worry about, silly – _that I had been so clumsy and rude to just casually walk into. I shouldn't be suspecting him for anything here, I was the rude one that should be ashamed for thinking such thoughts about such a kind, young man.

"No, not at all~. It was my fault as well." He calmly waved the whole thing away with one of his hands, and I felt a big amount of relief as he did so with a light, flirty tone involved. I began picking up all my papers and books that I'd dropped in the process of falling, and I sighed happily that it hadn't rained and that it didn't right now. If it had, all my work that I'd been sitting and finished for hours would have been destroyed on the wet, cold ground and all those hours of stress and sweat would have been in vain.  
So much to pick up, I even got marveled by the thought that I'd managed to carry all this for so long. The other person didn't continue his walk, he just quietly watched me move around on all fours on the ground, and if I'd said that I wasn't bothered one bit by it, I would have lied. But I was sure that he had his reasons.  
Suddenly, he actually made a sound instead of just watching me tidy up the street. It sounded like a curious 'hmm?', and I immediately got just as curious at what he was curious about. The adjective 'curious' was all over the scene, but for me, it got replaced by 'terrified' when I saw what he was reaching his hand towards.  
It was the picture I'd received in class today. The assignment was that everyone got a picture by random choice and was then supposed to write a short novel based on it. We were even supposed to present it next class, it was apparently a great homework for us to write something we usually didn't. My friend there actually got a picture of a clown holding a Asian dragon in the sunset, and I have no idea how she's going to do that. It's crazy, and I really looked forward to it. Until I received my picture.  
Lust, would be a perfect word to describe it. And somehow I feel like the teachers did it on purpose, because writing dirty is my weakness.  
And now, this handsome stranger was reaching for it, spotting the whole thing! He saw it! He could see everything of it!

So I quickly grabbed it before him.  
"I'm so sorry, that belongs to my teachers! It's a part of an assignment and all!" I gushed out and placed the thin paper with the erotic scene in the middle of my heap of books and papers, so that it could not be seen any longer than it already had.  
"Hmm~! It was some reeeaaaly dirty things on it though~! Are you sure it belongs to your teachers?" He accused and moved closer, putting me in an incredibly awkward situation.

_We are strangers for each other! He can't get so close! What is he doing! He's weird, save me!_

"Y-Yes! And I'm sorry if the picture disturbed you! I truly am!" I yelled in panic before backing away and bowing in embarrassment, before going back to picking up the last of my dropped work. He still didn't disappear. It all made me nervous, he wasn't going to try and hook up with me was he? In case he was, he needed to know that I wasn't that type of girl.  
"No, not at all." The guys walked closer again, and it disturbed me a bit that he didn't know what 'personal space' meant. His words were the same as when he took the blame earlier for our little crash, but the tone was different. This one was intimidating, low and yet flirty. It was terrifying for me, since this had happened before only with a different man. "On the contrary, it quite the opposite. I think that the two of us should get just as dirty~. Hey, what do you say?"

I froze, holding the books even closer and firmer against my chest. It happens again! Am I going to get raped!? Murdered!? Kidnapped!?  
I didn't want to imagine it, and just slowly backed away after standing up first. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't! Just when something weird or horrible happens in books, this had to be a nightmare! A very bad dream! It wasn't real! He wasn't real!  
Oh, but it was. That wicked grinned face didn't lie, and those calm, half closed eyes didn't either. Something was going to happen. Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that his reaching hand towards me lied either, he was going to harm me.

But just before he touched me, his intimidating hand dropped back to his side, and he shook his head with a smiling, disappointed face expression. I nearly fell to the ground, nearly gave up the hope that my shaking legs would hold me up any further.  
"What's with that face? I was only making a suggestion, nfu~. If you didn't want to that bad, you should've told me to stop." He mocked with closed eyelids, still shaking his head with the same, little smile as before. I think I nearly dropped my chin there.

"Why would you do that?" I was both upset and scared, but I was still sure that he'd done that for a reason. In any other case, I wouldn't have asked him.

I slightly flinched when his eyes shot open at the same time as his smile slowly disappeared, getting replaced by an expressionless, cold face. I don't know if he did that to scare me up a bit, but it certainly worked, as his smirk was back once again, and for a minute I felt like it would never leave.  
I barely knew what terrified me the most, his cold face, or his smirking one. Either one felt really strange and weird to show to someone you've just met, and I guess that's what scared me so. That he was being so familiar with me, way to familiar, even though I had never seen his face before.  
It left a spooky hole in me.

"Little girls shouldn't be running around on the dark street on the night, they can get badly hurt." He explained, but it didn't sound as if he was trying to protect me, nor as if he was truly concerned, but as if he was warning me of something he knew was supposed to happen.  
I still only believed that I was misunderstanding things because of the dark, I was being ridiculous as always.  
"Thank you." I answered and bowed my head to him, and when I looked up at him again, he seemed surprised. As if he hadn't expected me to ever in the world thank him for his consideration. It was sick, of course I would. All this made me not want to stay in his care any further, so I excused myself before running off, pretending to be in a hurry. Which I practically was, both in a hurry to come home and receive my scolding from mother, and far away from him.  
I only hear a small mumble behind me as I ran, saying 'no worries' as a reply to my 'excuse me. I wish I hadn't turned around when I heard it, because the only thing I felt like doing then was to sign up to live in the asylum for years due to imagining weird things.

I believed seeing him _**licking his lips while watching me run away.**_

That day, I knew that I was going _**crazy**_. And **_crazy_** was what people all around me was going to call me for years after that. _**Crazy**_ was what everyone believed I was.  
However, the only **_crazy_** one here was the one I was going to hate for eternity. Someone who was going to hunt me, to harm me, but also the only one who was going to know that I wasn't the _**crazy**_ one.

He was going to be my only reality. And I didn't even know it yet.

_**Short first chapter? Yes. But I figured that you guys wouldn't want to just sit around and read what an OC, completely unfamiliar to you, talk about her life all day. And I couldn't have too much Raito involved either, that would just be weird to have them spend time with someone they didn't even know for too long, and someone that even scared Yuka to death. Nope, so this chapter had to be short, but of course, the further in we get into the fanfic, the longer and more interesting chapter will come.  
You can see this as a prologue, as their first meeting with each other. I think I'll call this chapter "first meeting".**_

_**THANKIES FOR READING AND DON'T FORGET TO FAVORITE, FOLLOW, REVIEW, AND SEND IN A QUESTION TO .COM.  
AS ALWAYS, HAVE A GREAT DAY, YOU FUCKER.**_


	3. I'm Not Sure Of What I Saw

_****I really wanted to update this now~. You know, after listening to some music that makes you think of a couple and you totally get in the mood to write or fangirl and all kinds of things, it happened... Dammit... Once again, I just want to warn you that this will, indeed, get pretty sick, fucked up, crazy, violent, and shit. Serious shit, this ain't like my other stories, because I need to get my crazy thoughts and ideas out on paper and this is what happens. Well, for now, it's no big deal.  
It's later on that I'm worried about.****_

_**SAKAMAKI RAITO X HARUMI YUKA = RAIKA (writing this doesn't feel right since they ain't really lovey-dovey...)  
RATED: T FOR NOW!**_

I finally got home, after minutes of running with all my heavy books tightly pressed against my chest. Somehow, that only made it harder to run, but I wouldn't have had time to pick things up again if they fell, so I just kept on running, thinking that I seriously need to start to work out.

"Harumi Yuka!" An angry voice called out, I believed it came from the kitchen, before I had even closed the door. She'd really been worried, my mum. "Where have you been!? Look at the time, anything could've happened to you out there!" My mum yelled, and I could her a loud, jingling sound reaching into my ear, coming from the kitchen just as well as mum's scolding.  
_Something __**did**__ happen _I answered her in my mind, mentally rolling my eyes in irritation. I wasn't usually like this, and I definitely understood why she was upset, but something had given me a shot of annoyance and frustration. I blamed it on the cold weather outside, that'd made my skin a pink shade of red.

I walked into the kitchen on my left - only a few steps from the door - , immediately understanding that the high sound earlier had come from the microwave. Mum had warmed up the food that I'd missed to eat, that now had turned cold.

I shrugged, feeling bad at once for doing something so nonchalant when mother had been worrying. "Nothing, I just wanted to finish up some work at class." I assured her, not mentioning the strange boy from earlier, and made sure to make an obvious apologizing tone in it, as an extra apologize for shrugging like that. "But I'm not really hungry, mum. I'm sorry, but I feel very tired, so is it okay if I go to bed now?" I carefully asked.

The tanned woman, not alike me in appearance at all – even though she is my own mother, looked at me with tired, blue eyes without an exhausted look on her face, her eyelids sinking further down. "You shouldn't even need to ask that, dearie." She sighed. "Off to bed you go, make sure to sleep. Church tomorrow, and the lord surely does not wish for you to be late."

I nodded quietly and quickly ambled out of the kitchen and went up the stair right beside it, not wanting to disturb her any further. Before completely getting out of each others' sights, I bent down to see her put foil over the plate with the food that I should've eaten from. "You should get some sleep too, mum!" I shouted even though I knew that she wasn't going to listen anyway, receiving a kind smile from the person downstairs. I smiled back. "Goodnight, mum! I love you!"

She closed her eyes, shaking her head slowly with a smile planted on her lips. "Goodnight, dearie. I love you too, may the lord be with you."

By my bed, I said a couple of prayers to God (about health of my family and such important matters) before crawling down into my soft bed, falling into a goodnight sleep.

The next day, I'd completely gotten over what had happened the night before, thinking that a good dream had been just what I needed to realize that my crazy imaginations had taken over my mind and reality. And the church went very well, even though it was a bummer to get up early for it so that we wouldn't miss school. But I guess that's what happens when you live in a very religious home.  
Seeing crazy things was, and had never been, something good in society, so I decided not to tell anyone about the intimidating guy.

Except one.

"So you're telling me that _you_ actually _met_ _someone_ la-MPH!?" Minori yelled, and I quickly covered her mouth before she could yell out every person's deepest secrets to the rest of the world. I felt insulted too, is it _**that **_unusual for me to meet people, especially guys. She should know that it isn't, we go to the same church, the same school, and the same class. Not to mention that we've known each other since our first steps, due to both of our families being very religious.

"Hush! As loud as you're shouting, I bet that special _someone _could even hear you, you know!" I hissed into her ear, causing her to laugh a bit. Well, she always does. "And, yes. I did. But I don't understand why you're so chocked about it! It's offending." I pouted, letting go of her mouth so that she could fully laugh straight out, instead of threatening me with licking my hand.

She collected herself, after almost falling over the bitter lady's mailbox, and waved her index finger around in circles in the air. "Well, because even if you meet guys, you never date them, much less talk or even mention them to me." She hummed.  
_Then how do you know about them?_  
She playfully nudged me in the side by her right elbow, wearing that usual happy, laughing expression. "And I thought that you'd already found your _special someone._"  
She had barely finished talking when my left hand shot back against her lips again, to seal them for good. My face heated up, so I quickly stepped behind her so that she wouldn't notice. "You promised!" I already yelled at her in fury. "You promised that you would never talk about it if I told you!"

She fired her arms and hands up into the air, giving up as I covered her nose too, making it impossible for her to breathe. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Her smile lit up again and she closed her eyes in hopelessness. "But seriously, tell me. About him. About everything."

I was thankful that she kept her usually, and I mean 24/7, loud voice at least rather quiet, holding a low profile. I peeked around us, not wanting anyone to hear what I was going to say. Thankfully, since we walked from Church an early morning, not many people were crossing the streets. Almost none. "Well," I muttered. Those sparkling eyes looking at me, filled with excitement made it just a little bit hard to explain. "Nothing much. I just kinda bumped into him and-"  
Minori's wide eyes faded away, eyelids sinking in disappointment. And she rolled them, as if thinking that it was just 'typically you, Dummy-Yuka'.  
"Well, he kinda felt intimidating. I'm telling you, it wasn't something like that."

And because of all my crazy imagination, I constantly felt like we were being course, it was most likely only because I was saying a very private secret to her, and you always feel like the whole world can hear you. At least that was what I thought at that point.

And I continued to tell her about everything, almost against my will – but who can resist such a curious expression she gave off -, wondering if I should tell her about the whole 'licking the lips' thing, and if I did, when?  
And even though she was being curious about the encounter I had last night, she seemed to dislike the guy more and more for every word I carefully spoke. I understood her, because it wouldn't have mattered no matter how I told the story, it sounded creepy and unusual – not something you experience every day. She got very creeped out when I told her about his little 'suggestion', and Minori hadn't even heard the worst part yet.

But I trusted her. "But that wasn't the worst part." I swallowed hard, repeating the words from my thoughts, and watching her head tilt to the side as I spun around to make sure that no one was watching us, the feeling constantly crawled back into my body. We were almost at school, so the best would be to quickly say it before EVERYONE could hear. "Well, when I ran off... I sort off turned around to, well, I don't really know-"  
"Yes, yes! Hurry! Get to the damn point!"  
"Uhm, I kinda saw him – well, it could've been just an imagination of course -... lick his lips...?" I said, and it almost came out more like a question, as if I was asking her if I'd even seen right – as if she'd been there.

I didn't want to see how her face looked after that, but it would be the best way to decide how that should be taken. Maybe she'd just laugh it off and say; "Of course you're imagining things, are you stupid!?", or maybe she's sigh and say; "This is why you shouldn't be out late, dummy..."  
I had no idea.

But she didn't look like that at all. None of them. And if I'd thought that she'd been disgusted and creeped out before, you should've seen the expression on her face now. She looked outraged, horrified, as if she'd witnessed a murder. I was actually shocked, not just by the fact that Minori could actually make such an expression – or even feel that way about anything –, but also because I didn't take it like that. Sure, I also found it creepy and uncomfortable, but not that much – and I'd even been there, being the reason that he licked his lips if that now did happen.

I got more surprised by my own reaction of the whole situation, than about hers.  
"Yuka, listen to me well." She said, almost in a serious whisper as we entered the school yard. Then she suddenly stopped, holding her hand out for me to do the same. "Stay away from that guy, got that? He's probably nothing more than trouble, and a creep too."

I'd noticed how protective Minori could be of me, but whenever a guy asked me out, she had never reacted like this. And this handsome guy hadn't even asked me for a date or anything.  
My eyebrows creased in confusion, looking down at her index finger touching the skin beside my collarbone. "But I told you that I'm not sure of what I saw that ni-"

"Doesn't matter." She shook her head. "That guy's up to no good, and who knows what he wants you."

And then, she quickly skipped away towards the school with happy steps, mumbling that she wondered what we may have for lunch today, that's she's pretty hungry.  
I just walked slowly after her, watching her blonde hair, tied up in a thin ponytail, bouncing at the same pace as her skips.

"I never even said that I planned to meet the guy." I muttered, making sure that she didn't hear me. Minori was very stubborn, and motherly protective, and would never back off from me protesting against her. Can be really frustrating sometimes.

_(I never even said that I planned to meet the guy.)_

_**Owaii, I know very well that there weren't any Raito in this one, but I promise that he'll be in the next. And within no time, he'll be in absolutely every chapter! But sometimes, you just need one that includes important things for the future in the story, and maybe he can't just show up not even a day after their fist encounter. That'd incredibly weird.**_

_**THANKIES FOR READING AND I HOPE THAT YOU LIKE IT SO FAR!**_

_**Tumblr: .COM.**_


	4. Words Are Not A Matter

_**Another**__** chapter for Pantsu-chan's B-day, just as she wished~. It's funny that people already like this story a lot, even though I haven't even gotten to the 'Raito' thing yet (and even though I thought that it wasn't very exciting at all in the beginning). Well, I'm so happy for the reviews and all, because they really do warm ones heart in the cold of the winter~. **_

_**THIS IS NONROMANTIC, ONLY CREEPY, DISGUSTING, FORCING, AND HORRIBLE! And if you're into that, welcome aboard.**_

_Somewhere in Japan._

_Five years ago._

"Okay, well, see you in church tomorrow!" I shouted to Minori, who was already on her way of skipping away from me down the street, and waved my hand.

She turned around in her skipping, or more like swung around with her school bag swinging along, and waved back to me, continuing to skip backwards instead.

"Yeah, see ya, Yuka!" she shouted back, using her free hand and placing it standing outwards beside her parted lips, like people sometimes do when they want their voices to be heard even better. "Go to bed early tonight!"

She was still teasing about that guy from yesterday's awkward situation.

I sighed at that, but couldn't help the smile that invaded my face as she happily laughed and turned around to skip down the street the right way again.

"Sure, I promise..." I muttered, and turned around myself, walking past all the cute little houses in all the different colored bricks. There were some really stunning gardens as well, with beautiful different flowers that matched each other perfectly in color, in a way where they gave a happy and peaceful effect to one another by color alone. Like when you need chords to bring out the melody in better and more dramatic tones.

Too bad it was cloudy today, it made everything look a lot more sad and rotten. Even our garden that mum and I had made so pretty with lanterns, flowers, and a fountain looked rather dull and tragic in the foggy weather. The orange, red, pink, and yellow lanterns that we'd hanged on a strong, thin wire didn't even look as pretty nor shine as breathtakingly stunning like they usually did, and that felt a bit sad. Well, it was only to wait until night falls over the sky.

I reached my mail box, feeling extra excited again just by thinking about that I maybe finally was going to receive the long awaited letter, or maybe even a package filled with souvenirs. The long awaited letter from dad wasn't there.

Or at least not a letter, but a flower. Or maybe even around twenty of them on the same stalk. They were small of course, because all these twenty white flowers were together about the same size as my hand. Their petals were five; rather thin ones, standing outwards from the green pistil with dark red tops.

Very cute flowers, the kinds that you just want to put in your hair and make it prettier.

I closed the mailbox since, sadly, there hadn't been any letter from dad in it. But that didn't matter, I mean, he'd sent me these small white flowers, what more could I wish for at the moment? I was sure about the fact that he'd send me a letter, telling me about how things are in America, within a week or so. Dad is a teacher - just like my stepdad -, but often travels to other schools in other countries to tell them about the culture in Japan and what we have in common with other countries and what we do not, unlike my stepdad that only stays at one school for his entire carrier.

No one home.

Picking up the key from my pocket, I tried to calm Mimi down from barking and scratching at the door with a collected, happy voice. It didn't work well though, and as soon as I opened the door, only a little bit, she basically flew out and began running around in the yard, and around my legs, jumping and barking with her tongue hanging out on the side of her mouth. She's always so happy, that's what I love about her. You always feel so welcomed and awaited when you're heard coming into the yard.

And after taking her out, I quickly ran upstairs, Mimi following my every step, and jumped into bed, letting Mimi jump up as well and lick me in the face.

And it didn't matter how much she licked me, because unlike what they always say in the movies and series, it doesn't tickle one bit.

Maybe because I'm used to it?

A small crunching sound got my full attention, and awaked my memory. I nearly screamed; "NO, OH GOD, NO!" when I remembered the little flowers I'd received. I was crushing them!

Jumping out of bed faster than I'd jumped into it, I noticed the flowers still there, still looking rather as good as earlier, making a huge relieved sigh to come through my lunges.

That was also when I noticed something in them. Something even whiter than the flowers themselves, something more flat and square with something narrow and black on them.

A note.

So I threw myself over it, grabbing it to see what it read without destroying the flowers any further. With a nice, curvy handwriting, I read the exact words;

"_**Words are not a matter. The meaning behind them is."**_

Why would my dad write that? He wasn't really one of those people that speaks in riddles (had never been, will never be), and nor does he even like them. He often just gets irritated by them and asks what the sweet lord they mean.

I had a small interest for them, and we've had a few talks about them in my Literature class, and you didn't need to be Einstein to understand what this meant, but what did it mean in this scenario?

So I got to the conclusion of using mankind's best friend these days. The Internet, or more exact, Google. What kind of flower this is, I had no idea, but that was what I was going to find out.

_White flowers. _Not much of a precisely answer to that one.

_White flowers with five petals. _Better, but not so good either.

_White flowers with five thin petals that bloom in groups._ Gave much better results, one of the links there even had a list of pictures and names so it couldn't take long to find them.

I followed the list of the white flowers, scrolled down and continued looking for minutes. There were plenty of flowers to go though, but I was sure of the fact that it was going to be worth it. It was a little funny, too. Because dad usually never does anything else than send me letters and such, gives me money for my literature class, never calls...

I know that it can be hard to stay in touch when you're so far away from each other, but I just felt so ignored sometimes.

I jumped a little in my seat when I found it, the little white flower with a slight tint of pink. It looked exactly the same. It had to be the one.

I read the name _Nutmeg Geranium _beside the picture, and quickly clicked on the blue text that said the name, leading me to a different site. The page was filled with facts about the flower. How to plant it and take care of it, which seemed to be to plant it in containers and water them regularly. I could also read when they bloom, which seemed to be from late winter/early spring, to late autumn/early winter.

**Family: ****Geraniaceae****. **

**Genus: **_**Pelargonium**_.

**Species: **_**fragrans.**_

And so I continued reading about them, that their leaves could be used for salads or desserts, and even to a hot cup of tea to give off an relaxing and exotic touch to it, that they grow to 30-45 cm in height, and so on. And I tried to come up with a meaning to why he would send me a flower and that riddle when the flower didn't even seem to mean anything special.

But then I spotted a small text in the color blue at the end of the page, reading _**Click to view in the Language Of Flowers **_and understood everything.

He'd made me a little tricky funny activity to do; did he know that I liked those kind of little games? Because I do, and there's no way that he could've known just from my Literature class.

I clicked on the link, and an almost completely black site came up, with white text. In the beginning, I couldn't see the meaning of the flower that I was looking for (only others, and most of them meant something with love - secret love, true love, forbidden love, etc), but after scrolling down a bit, I saw it.

_GERANIUM NUTMEG - I expect a meeting. _

The words lit up as I read them, just as my mood, shining stronger than the other white sentences on the black page. Was dad going to come visit me!? Spend time with me? Maybe he's coming home from America, finally?

As if just wanting to ruin my happiness, right on timing, I heard the creaking of our door swing open. Mum was probably home from her art exhibition.

Already? I panicked, nearly throwing myself over my clock and finding out that it wasn't 'already' at all. She was just about to come home anyway, as the hour hand clearly was placed over the number eight. Moreover, she was expecting me to sleep right now. We had church tomorrow, and if she would see me sitting on my computer, I'd be punished for sure.

I turned my computer off with a single switch - thank God for modern computers that are quick to go black - and jumped into bed, jerking the warm sheet over myself, and hoping that mum wouldn't notice that I'm still in my school uniform. And just after closing my eyes, I heard the door open, pausing with a silence as mum watched my (faked) sleeping-face before giving approval of it, and closing the door again.

I had been inhaling several big breaths, and still I felt like I hadn't breathed the entire time when I finally exhaled, as she was gone.

Mum wouldn't be happy if I told her that dad was coming back home, so I would let it be a surprise for her (or maybe let dad tell her and pretend that I don't know). I mean, I can just pretend that I didn't figure out the riddle so that mum doesn't get upset like she did last time.

But I felt super excited deep inside.

Too bad that it wasn't dad that was coming for a little visit.

_**I know, I know, there wasn't any Raito in this chapter either... But kinda...? I mean, of well... HE'LL SHOW UP IN THE NEXT CHAPTER, I PROMISE! **_

_**THANKS FOR READING AGAIN AND I HOPE THAT YOU'LL STICK WITH ME IN THE NEXT CHAPTER TOO!**_


	5. Maybe It Was Fate?

_**I don't even have much to write here today... Let's just say that long story short, I've been sick and very frustrated because fucking hell...  
SAKAMAKI RAITO X HARUMI YUKA (still don't know if I can write that since... you know.. they won't really be lovey dovey...)  
RATED: T IN THIS CHAPTER!**__****_

In the end, getting any sleep yesterday, or even trying to, was utterly futile. I had just lied awake on the bed, squeezing, hugging and rolling around in the sheets in my airhead excitement. The only time when I had actually lied still was when the door opened with a creaking, horrific sound and letting mum inside to check on me, trying to figure out what was causing all the commotion.

But lying awake all night was not the issue at all, it was trying to keep the eye lids where they were supposed to be one morning in the church -open.  
And worse was that even though I actually kept my eyes focused (or pretended to every time mum shot a glimpse at me), school started right after. That's another set of hours that I'll have to stay focused and awake.  
And to top it all off, Minori was home in bed today. Her parents told me that in church today, saying that she caught a cold while chasing a dog down into a lake when walking home from school yesterday, only minutes after our ways parted. Who does that? Well, if not Minori of course...

I lazily dragged my feet across the sidewalk, wondering in despair who would nag about their hunger and draw horrible chibis with messed-up faces in class when she should be studying if not Minori today? Who would annoy me, tease me, if not her? School is horribly unendurable without Minori, the only person who actually protected me from both the mean girls (or as she would say, "the despicable whores whose jealousy is the only thing they know and care about) and the guys with too much feelings for me.  
Not that I didn't sympathize with the people that held feelings for me, because anyone facing Minori's overprotecting fury is most definitely to respect. _****_

_And I'm soon at school, soon my freedom is caged..._I thought, realizing with a little flinch that my life really is nothing but a returning, regular scenario. I wake up the same time everyday, get my ass (sorry for the language, God) to the church, get my ass (once again, sorry for the language, God, I will not repeat that) to school, get my ass (I did it again, forgive me) home, sleep, wake up again, go to church, and so on.  
And those thoughts of realization are the worst of all, because it really corrupts the mind, trying it to a depraving depression. _**  
**__  
__Why is life so boring, anyway? Shouldn't I be able to make it enjoyable?___Ahhh, it was almost laughable how pathetic I got as soon as Minori wasn't by my side, right?

"You shouldn't be sighing like that. It will take away your happiness, you know." _****_

_Shoot, someone heard me. Quick, put on your innocent smiling maiden face of youth! _"Oh, I'm sorry! Did I disturb you perha-"_****_

_It's him. It's him. It'shim. It'shimit'shimit'shimit'shim. __My eyes must be lying, I got so deep in my depressing thoughts about my boring, regular, constant scheduled life that my brain has now made me see things that aren't even real. This was not what I meant with an enjoyable life, brain. Please stop.__****_

But it was the same eyes, mysterious green and capturing, piercing mine in the exact same way it did last time, shooting the exact same panicked sensation through me the exact same way it did last time. Could the brain really make up such a strange feeling with just mere imagination?

"What, did I take your breath away~?" The man hummed in a small chuckle.

The same pale face. Same brown (with a small shade of red) and shiny hair reaching down to his chin, perfectly combed just like last time. Same hat tilted the same way on his head, one of his hands gripping it. If this was just an illusion, my brain must be really good at remembering stuff because I actually didn't even recall all these things about the guy until just now. _****_

_Yes, you did take my breath away.___I answered him mentally, as my trembling lips refused to give out any intellectual sort of communication, only 'uh', 'ah', 'eh', 'uh', 'ah' and so on.  
Surprisingly enough, my knees did not give in._****_

I could only observe him as he tilted his head to the side, receiving a worried smile from him. "Why are you so surprised? Is it that unusual for two strangers to meet twice? Hmm, maybe it was fate~?"

He smiled so dangerously beautiful, a smile to kill for._****_

_No, wait._

_(Yuka, listen to me well.)___

_Yeah, that's right. Minori said all that..._

_(Stay away from that guy, got that? He's probably nothing more than trouble, and a creep too.)__****_

"Say, what's the matter? You look so pale all of a sudden... Am I scary? There, there, nothing to be afraid of! I'm a kind guy, I won't hurt you."_****_

_(Doesn't matter. That guy's up to no good, and who knows what he wants you.) __****_

Minori wants to protect me. If she ever finds out about me suddenly meeting this guy again, she'll get very worried. Who knows what she'll do. Who knows what this guy will do? Under that smile, he's surely the same as all the others.

There's only one guy I can trust, and it's certainly not this guy in front of me. "I'm sorry. I have to go. I've got school." I made my reasons as short as possible, starting to stumble past him on the side walk making sure not to give away any information of any sort through expressions. Therefore, showing none.

But he wouldn't let me go that easily.

"N-NO!" I tried to break free from the grip he'd got on my wrist, feeling panic through every inch of me by the faint touch of his. "Let go! Don't touch me!" Someone having a hold on your wrist is never good, that's how they always do. The dangerous bad guys in the fictional books -but then again, the charming guys at school that get into this romantic relation with that geeky girl also always pulls her back by the wrist against the will. Maybe that's the thing with monsters. They disguise themselves to the charming type that society wants them to be._****_

A true psychopath. Dangerously captivating. Dangerously tantalizing. Luring you in. Slowly.

He almost whispered to me, half-lidded and focused on everything. "I'll take you somewhere. Keep quiet and follow me." He began to move the opposite way that I was originally heading, turning right into some kind of alley that I supposed would lead us somewhere. Somewhere dangerous. "It'll be fun."_****_

_That's what they always say. __****_

"No! Please! I don't want this!" I yelled, trying to grab onto something on the wall to prevent him from pulling me along any further. "Stop it, please! I don't want to go!" I kept resisting and protesting all the time, but I didn't get free. How was it possible for a man to have such strength? That I couldn't even affect the grip even a little? " We don't even know each other! Why are you doing this!"

The guy now turned around, eyes looking deep into mine. I expected him to say something, and stumbled back slightly as his hand raised from hanging down his side. I had first expected him to hit me (slap me, grab my hair, stab me, do anything that would harm me), but while the index finger stood up, and the other fingers lied down against his hand, he placed it vertically over his slightly smiling lips.

Telling me to keep quiet, or something really bad might just happen. But the most terrifying with it wasn't even that it was threatening, but that he made it look so sweet and soft. So calm. Like he could rip out my heart, and his expression would move an inch.

And that caused little me to just calmly get dragged away by him, looking into empty space where his eyes had once been.

Those horrible eyes.

The alley led us into some kind of really crowded crack on the left wall, just big enough for us to get through. The whole thing felt weird, and I was scared. I didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do. Neither of us spoke, the only communication we had was when I made the slightest effort to pull free and escape the scene, the times when his grip painfully got firmer -threateningly.  
And the times where I actually got a look of his face when we were turning left or right, an excited smirk was playing on his lips, eagerly waiting.  
_Waiting for what?_

And I did try to memorize the different turns and directions he chose to take, but by the time he suddenly dragged me down into some kind of hole, I had completely forgotten everything except for a few lefts and rights here and there.

But unlike what I'd thought, the two of us didn't find ourselves in the swabs (where my mind had forcefully brought up a whole detailed scenario on how he would slaughter me and dump my body down here for it to never be found), but in some kind of dark... club? There were others there. There were faint shimmering of glowing colors in the black area.

And we went deeper in, passing a few people -both girls and boys in every age (some looked like five). Until I had no idea where we were anymore.

"We're here~." The guy next to me hummed, grip around my wrist loosening up a bit.  
I just noticed that none of the people in the place danced, barely moved really, so what were they doing here? It couldn't be a club then, right? Well, if not all the movies has lied to us that people dance at clubs of course... And if suddenly kids could join in to clubs to.

I took a step back. "I want to go back, I'll definitely be scolded for this..."

_It's like I'm asking for his permission to leave... I should just be able to turn my back and run, not caring if I don't find out. And it doesn't matter if he chases you, because if he does that, then he was going to harm you from the start anyway. _

His finger softly tapped his chin. "Hmmm, but it's just about to begin, though..."

"Begin? What is-" Everything went black, and I didn't hear another word from the guy that was supposed to be right beside me, but was now nowhere to be found.

"I promise that I'll find you first."

That felt weird, because he didn't make it sound like you'd first think that he'd mean (that he would find you before going off and doing something else), but he made it seem as if there were others that was going to search for me. To try and find me, and he made it sound like things would be bad if they did.

Aside from the panic and fear, I felt another terrifying fact hit me in the dark.  
I didn't even know this guy's name. I didn't even know his name, but I had been taken by him into some kind of dark space and been left there, being expected to just sit around like a good girl and wait for him to 'come and find me'.

But following the walls of the space, I even realized that it wasn't just any space, because this wall parted many times, and the walls that it parted into also parted many times.

It was a maze. A dark, big, confusing maze.

_Am I the only one in it? The only 'prey', I mean?  
Is there someone else here, too? _

Somehow, both of the thoughts was terrifying. I didn't want to ever be alone here (be the one that all of the predators would pursue), but there was no way that I would want others to feel the same way as I did myself right now either. And having to choose between them felt impossible, as if I could live with myself.

But just in case, I really wanted to search for someone else. If there was some other, we could maybe help each other out of there. Because maybe they had also been taken here against their will?  
I tried to ignore my trembling body, tried to force it to take steady steps forward, one had sliding along the wall while the other reached out in the air to search for something that I might bump into in the dark.

_How did this happen to me, anyway? _It seemed as if I had totally forgotten how I got myself into this situation. _Oh, that's right. _I though, replaying both of the scenarios of when we first met and when he'd called out to me just about an hour maybe ago.

_(Why is life so boring, anyway?)_

_Oh, that's right. Just before he came, I was thinking that _

God, I brought this to myself as well it seems. The Lord must have heard me and this is my punishment.  
"I never wanted this." I whined, bringing my hands together up against the sky (though, we were underground) to pray. _I never wanted excitement such as this... I wasn't serious... _"Please, please, I have been selfish. I want to go home... Please help me find my way out, Lord."

"Oi! Erumi! Wait up!"

_Huh? _

There was a girl running my way, but it didn't look like she was trying to catch up to someone at all. She was sweating like crazy, so she must have been running for a while.  
"Oh, excuse me, but could you help me!?" I shouted, cupping my hands around my mouth.

But she did not slow down, and as she got closer, I saw it. The mad look on her face. She looked desperate, terrified. Eyes wide and red, mouth hanging wide open to get in as much as as she could through quick breathings.

Her eyes only went wider as her red pupils landed on me. "GET OUT OF MY WAY, BITCH!" She yelled, her saliva flying out of her mouth every time it made a movement.

And I did as I was told, literally jumping with my back into the wall as she arrived, racing past me. It was first a few seconds after the girl (she must have been only 13 years, but she did know how to run) had disappeared into the darkness that I spotted another girl running my way. But this one didn't look like the first.  
Indeed she was terrified and desperate as well, but in another way. Her eyes were calmer, and her expression missed the crazy part that the first had. It must have been this one that shouted earlier, and from the looks of it, the girl running past me must have been the one called 'Erumi'.

She tried to call out to Erumi once again. "C'mon, Erumi, if you could just frickin wait and we could get out of here toge-"

She tripped. She actually tripped. And I was not ready for that. I'm not sure how she tripped (I couldn't see because of the dark, but now that I think about it, the dark was probably the reason she tripped to begin with), but that didn't matter. She was only about some meters away from me, and I was already heading her way. I hurried to her, running without caring if Id trip as well.

"Oi! You, are you alright!?" I finally reached her, leaning down to help her up by our hands. "You didn't get hurt, did you?"

She smiled weakly, and I felt how warm and moist her hand was. She had also been running very much. "No... I'm comple...tely... fine." Not to mention that she was all out of breath. "I ju..st don't... know what to... do... Erumi is... gone and... Sorry... I have to... just breathe... for a... while..."

"Yes, breathe all you want! Here, sit down for a bit." Making out what she said was a bit difficult, so she had all her rights to breathe. She looked like she wanted to cry, eyes moist and skin flushed, but she kept a strong smile covering that.

_Did she come here with a friend? I shouldn't ask questions to her right now, but I really want to._

"What is your name?" I asked, thinking that it would be a good thing to begin with.

The girl forced a strand of hair away from her eye and back behind her ear. "Shinohara Yumi." Her breath had calmed down now, and the light, beautiful girly voice was easy to understand. "But you can call me whatever you want really.. What's yours?"

"Harumi Yuka. Pleased to meet you."

"Ah, then I'll just call you Yuka-san."

She completely waved off all signs of politeness, even though she was younger than me. She looked like she was in the other girl's age, around 13 years old, if not even younger. "Say, Yumi-chan, who was that other girl just now?" i tried asking it carefully, in case it was very personal and sensitive.

But Yumi kept looking me in the eyes, not reacting much to what I'd said. Thank god. "Ah, you mean Erumi, right? Well, we met not long ago to be honest, maybe just about a week or so before we were brought here."

The last words snapped my mind. "You were also brought here? Do you maybe know why, Yumi-chan? Please, can you tell me, I'm confused and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you." She interrupted, rolling her eyes and suddenly using her hands on the floor to support her body to go up. "But in the meantime, we'll walk. We need to find our way out of here after all. Or something bad will happen.

I silently nodded, but I don't think she even looked my way when I did, and we both got to our feet. Immediately, we began to walk.

"Well, how am I supposed to tell you..." She bit her lip, thinking deeply. "Man, I've never been good at stuff like this... Uhm..."

"No, it doesn't really matter how you formulate yourself, I don't mind at all..."

"Okay, look." She said, finally deciding on how to talk. "So this ain't no party, okay? This is stuff they do for fun. To them, it's a fun game to play."

"_'They'?_"

"Anyway, they all come here with one -okay, lemme just describe it like this- 'date' each. Both women and guys. Both kids and grandparents. All kinds of people do this shit. It's a fun activity I guess. They take their dates into this giant, dark, frickin' maze and when everything goes completely dark, the 'hunt' begins. All these people then tries to find someone, and the first person they encounter, they get. Well, you could somehow call it a blind date, y'know. Though, most people try to get it together with the ones they got here with. Some succeed, others don't."

I couldn't believe my ears, had I just heard that right now? Had I been taken by that guy to some sort of weird blind date? He should know that there are more ways to ask someone out on a date. "Wait, what? I need to think, give me a second to get this into my head."

"Well, I got here with Erumi about one and a half hour ago with two guys, they had asked us out on a date. And the party we were at was so boring, so we could never say no. I also found out about this shit not long ago from my date, can't even remember the dude's name though."

So she got here 30 minutes before I did. "But what was all the thing about 'them' earlier. Who is 'them'? You make it sound like they are different from us." I asked, trying to get both of us to walk a little faster by picking up the pace.

"That's because they are... Well, the thing is..." She scratched her head, looking up at the ceiling. I waited impatiently for the answer. "They are-"

Yumi suddenly vanished from my view, being replaced by one of those black walls. But she hadn't been the one to get pulled away. That one was me. I had been smoothly snatched by an arm around my waist coming from one of the corners behind me and Yumi, all in one quick movement. I hadn't even gotten time to react and scream before my back hit a wall, two soft hands keeping me where I was, light breathing coming from above.

"No..." I breathed, not even realizing that I talked out loud. I didn't dare look up to see who had gotten his hands on me on this cursed blind date. I didn't even want to play this game, I had just gotten dragged into it.

It was disgusting, that feeling of being incapable of anything, and it was far too familiar for my liking. I never wanted to feel like this ever again, I never wanted a thing like this to happen to me ever again.

But as my two hands were bound together by one of his, I felt the other grasp my chin and bring it upwards. I shut my eyes, still refusing to let them rest upon whoever was holding me. Struggling didn't work, but it didn't stop me from trying, especially when I heard a low chuckle, feeling his warm breath against my lips. _He's close. Too close. He's going to kill me. Rape me. Harm me. He's going to-_

It had been years since I had felt it. The warm and pressing, soft and yet so harsh and straightforward, feeling of lips fitting so sickly perfect over mine as he let them collide. Making knees weak, head spinning, the body suddenly becoming heavier than earlier.  
But he wasn't satisfied with that, a wet tongue rubbing and teasing my lower lip. Did he actually think I'd let him? I may feel weak to his touch (but he's not special, I'm ridiculously weak to every man's touch), but I'm not accepting defeat.  
I tried pushing him off with my knee, as my hands still was dysfunctional in his left one. And he used that to his advantage. Roughly pushing me back against the wall, he made me gasp in pain (not at all in shock, it wasn't surprising after all).

His tongue couldn't have found a better chance to smoothly slip into the entrance, forcing my own into an aggressive, controlling dance. And yet it was so sensual, he moved so (and it's even awkward to say it) tantalizingly graceful, causing my blood to boil with more than twenty different feeling, both negative and positive. But it was the positive that made my gut twist in disgust, making me sick to my stomach.

Until he finally stopped, letting me finally take a sweet sip of air. Or a thousand, as I was weakly out of breath.

"I told you I'd find you."

_**!**_

_**That voice..!**_

Eyelids finally daring snapping up, the first thing my blue eyes landed upon was him. Him and his green eyes. Those eyes really always manages to get the biggest of my attention, don't they? Same reddish brown hair that goes to his chin, same black fedora, same everything. "Y-You..."

I didn't have the words. I didn't have the air either, for that matter. I had already been breathing heavily, but the sight of him later had now also made me completely breathless. I didn't know if I was relieved that it was him, or just even more scared.  
He managed to give both feelings at the same second.

He chuckled at my surprise. "Really, you..." He hummed, half-lidded and a hopeless smile on his face, a tint of pink on his cheeks. He leaned in close again, and I knew what he was going to do, but I couldn't move, I could just stare into his eyes, mine wide and still shocked. "Being frightened to death, you are even cuter than I imagined you to be."

And then, he had both my lips and eyes locked on his.

And he had already thrown away the key.

_**Woah, I managed to write pretty much on this chapter, right!? And in only five days too~! It may not be much for other writers, but it's a really big step for me! Hope you enjoy it so far, I told you there'd be Raito in this chapter!  
THANKIES FOR READING THIS CHAPTER, I EXPECT YOU TO STAY WITH ME UNTIL NEXT CHAPTER AND YOU BETTER NOT DISAPPOINT ME!**_


	6. I'll Take You Home

_**Okay, it's been fucking five months since the last update on this one… Holy shit, time passes quickly… I'm so sorry…**_

_**SAKAMAKI RAITO X HARUMI YUKA!**_

_**RATING WILL BE KEPT SECRET CAUSE I TEND TO FORGET THEM ANYWAY.**_

Two days had passed since _that night_ with _that guy whose name I didn't even know_. After all that, he had calmly taken me home as if nothing had just happened, and I hadn't seen him since. Why? Because I hadn't gone outside for three days in a row.

Going out was a no-no, so I decided that home = safe. Ever since that really weird day, I didn't dare go out in case I'd meet him again – which I knew obviously couldn't be just a coincidence. There was no way we'd just randomly run into each other.

Having to lie to my mum and pretend that I was "not feeling well today either" wasn't easy. I could almost feel her growing suspicion, but in the end, she just told me to be happy about my good grades and pray to the Lord to get well soon.

My freaked-out mind kept me standing by the window and looking for men with black fedoras nearly all day. In the end, I didn't see a single one before a knock on the door was heard, and Mimi immediately ran straight toward it to bark on whoever was going to intrude.

I was home by myself – mum hadn't come home from work yet – so I hurried down the stairs to at least pat Mimi's head and silence her. But I hesitated for a long time to open the door. I stood frozen in front of it, finding it harder to answer to the knock than I thought I would have. It was even in the middle of the bright day too.

The voice sounded muffled from the other side of the door. "Oiiiii! Yukaaaaa, ya theeeere~!?"

There was no mistake that the cheerful, abnormally loud tone belonged to Minori. Thinking about it, I really should've seen it coming. I hadn't been to school in three days now, so it wasn't strange for her to come and visit. Actually, a whole tree days before visiting was abnormally late for her. She'd normally visit the very same day I became sick.

"Aaa~ah, I thought ya were dead for a second there. I was preparing myself to burst the door open, ya know," Minori sighed as I opened the lock. Letting herself in to take off her shoes, she patted the white ball off fluff in front of her with small baby-talk – "hayyy, lil mini Mimiiii~" - and a silly smile.

It wasn't really unusual for her to just "intrude" like that though. This was basically her second home since the age of two.

"Sorry for taking so long…."

She sighed once more, putting her shoes against the wall. Then she let out a laughing snort, facing me with an amused grin.

"Don't tell me ya were scared, thinking that I was some serial killer coming to collect your head or somethin'?" She laughed.

_Well, something like that. _I definitely couldn't tell Minori about meeting up with that guy again. She'd get furious for sure, and involve the church and my parents if not even the police. And if mum found out about it, she'd –without no doubt – forbid me from ever going outside again.

"No, nothing like that."

Minori smiled. "Liar."

She began walking through the first hall of the house, Mimi happily following after to lie down in her dog basket. I walked after Minori to the kitchen, struggling to keep an equal pace to hers as usual. In everything she does, Minori uses up three times more energy and enthusiasm than needed. Walking was no exception.

"Anyway," I tried hard to hide my heavy breathing after the short walk.

Pouring milk into a glass, Minori's head turned up to face me. "What?"

"Isn't it kind of strange for you to, you know, only pay me a visit after three days? You usually come right away, barging into my house while yelling stuff like "OI YUKA U OKAY" or something."

"Oh, that?" She bottoms-upped her milk, wiping off the white moustache it gave her. "Four days ago, I was sick, remember?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm still sick."

_Oh. _That explained the way she'd dressed more sloppily than usual. And the fact that her face was all red and sweaty.

She laughed at the way I scanned her appearance, reading my thoughts and grinning widely while ruffling up my brown hair. "I look much better than you though! Look at this mane! You haven't braided any of it in the front like you usually do, huh – much less combed it! And these bangs standing up, they don't even look pixie cut anymore! Hey, have you even bothered to put on your contact lenses today?"

"Stop it!" I couldn't contain the laugh as I force her hand away, trying to push down all the hair that had gotten in every way and direction because of Minori's actions.

"Once I become a hairdresser, I won't let you walk around with bed hair like this!"

"Yeah, yeah… I get it…" I sighed, going into the kitchen to get a glass of milk myself too. "But hey. If you're sick, shouldn't you be in bed right now instead of walking all this way here?"

"Oh, by the way! I've brought your mail!"

"You're not listening…"

"There's even some fan mail to you here from some of the boys at school – bet Natsumi will try to bully you again if she'd found out about that. Don't worry, though, this Minori-sama in shining school uniform protect you!"

"Uhm, Minori, I'm trying to tell you-"

"Most of the letters are the same as always. "YUKA/HARUMI-CHAN/SENPAI/SAN –or whatever – PLEASE GO OUT WITH ME I'VE LIKED YOU FOR A VERY LONG TIME AND IT WOULD MAKE ME VERY HAPPY IF YOU WOULD ACCEPT MY FEELINGS" and stuff-"

"You really shouldn't mock people's feeling like that…"

"-but this one if kind of weird. Look here."

Minori's hand goes down into her baggy pants' gigantic left pocket, digging around in it for a bit before finally founding what they searched for. Out of it, she pulls a small, beige note along with a tiny purple and yellow object. She handed it to me, and I missed a heartbeat as I saw a card and a flower in my hand.

"I think that flower's name is _Heart's Ease _or something. And sure, the name is pretty and so is the flower, but who usually gives their crush such a small, fragile thing?" Minori creased her eyes in confusion, looking down at my hands with suspicious eyes. "And the card is freaking weird too."

"Words are not a matter. The meaning behind them is," I read out loud from the sharply handwritten letters on the card. The exact same sentence that I'd gotten the last time, when the flower was _Geranium Nutmeg_. Although, dad still hadn't come home since.

"See? I don't wanna call it creepy or anything, but it's really weird…"

I read the card again.

"Yeah…"

The next day, we were off from school. Mum still worked, and even though my stepdad was a teacher and there was no school, he had a lot of paperwork to do. So I was left home alone again, sulking in my bed with Mimi chilling on my stomach. Just like yesterday, I'd been too lazy to both comb and braid my hair, dress, or even put on any lenses. Since when had I gotten that lazy?

_What's with me? I'll worsen my eyesight if I continue like this. _

"Sorry, Mimi, but could you get off?" I began moving, which obviously made my fluffy dog understand what I was trying to tell her. I got up and walked over to the bathroom, looking at my pitiful state in the mirror.

The clock wasn't even 6 PM, and yet I was so tired and somewhat… irritated with myself. Lying around in my room and only ever going outside when taking a walk with the dog these past days had left me bored to death, and I couldn't stand another second of it. Doing the same thing over and over again in the same place with the same people and things, I hated it a lot more than I ever knew I would.

"That's it," I hissed into the mirror's reflection of me trying to comb through my thick hair (it wasn't even that long, so why was it so hard to comb it?). "I'm going out."

I began combing my hair. And as I always did, I braided a small part of it into two separate, loose braids beside my face, leaving the big amount of remaining hair alone. I put on a turquoise top with a cardigan and white shorts together with black thigh stockings since it was in the middle of summer and still very warm outside. In the end, I was too lazy to begin putting in my lenses, so I took my old pair of red glasses instead.

I closed the door to the house, locked it and skipped down the two stairs and out of the yard. Mum would come home from work at about 9 PM, so I had about three hours to do whatever I wanted to.

The library was only a twenty-minute walk from my house so I decided to leave the bike at home and get some healthy exercise once in a while. But I had to run if I wanted to get to the library in time before closing time at 6, and I barely got there in time.

"Can I help you with something?" an old late in her fifties called out as she caught me stressed out and hesitating in front of the bookshelves. She looked very tired and maybe even annoyed to have me there so close to 6, as I was the only one there really, and I quickly felt even more stressed.

"Y-Yes!" I replied a lot louder than I had intended, and my voice echoed in the big room. Without really knowing what I wanted her to help me with, I was forced to answer quick before she shoved me out. The answer was, "I was wondering if you had _Wuthering Heights _here?"

To tell the truth, I had read that book more than once before, but it couldn't be helped. It's my fault for coming so late to the library without even knowing what I wanted to read.

The lady nodded slowly and waved her hand in a gesture that told me to follow her. Walking quickly to a bookshelf very close to the exit, she picked up the very same ochre brown book with the same pretty brown haired woman on it that I had help in my hand about two months ago.

She scanned it and wrote something on her computer and got a bag out of nowhere and put the book in it and fixed a receipt and gave it to me. All so quickly that I barely saw it and before I knew it, I was out on the street again with a plastic, blue bag in my hands. The clock was now five minutes over 6 PM and I was a little ashamed to have gotten out of there after closing time. The lady really looked like she needed some sleep too…

Living in a neighbourhood close to the city was a good thing because that meant that everything was just a twenty-minutes walk away from you. The park was very close to the library, and there were still a lot of children with their parents, adults and teenagers, and people walking with their dogs there so it felt like a very safe place to sit down and read. If that guy were to pop up and try to drag me away to some weird place again, people would see that and come to my rescue.

The park was nice too. Lots of all kinds of flowers in all kinds of colors in all kinds of places. The park benches were clean and had been repainted in the beginning of summer, now looking brand new. I took a seat in one of the benches in front of the fountain as that's where most people in the park were.

Time passed and the street lights were to soon do their purpose. Before I knew it, I was already reading chapter 15.

_'Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself,' cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth._

_The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin._

_'Are you possessed with a devil,' he pursued, savagely, 'to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existenc-_

"Wuthering Heights, huh~?"

The voice appearing out of nowhere and murmuring in my ear sent me jumping out of the bench in chock, shrieking so loud that I immediately began looking at how the people there reacted. But as I did, I noticed something. There were no people left there anymore. They had all gone home during the time I had read and I hadn't noticed it.

I wanted to slap myself for that. I didn't need to turn around to know who had startled me – his voice had already been carved into my memory. And there was no one that could help me now, all because of my own stupidity.

"It's a good book. Long time no see," he hummed with his angel-voice, and I could see the smiling face of his in my mind.

Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe the problem had a simple solution. He was silent behind me now, waiting for me to say or do something – or at least turn around to meet his devilish eyes. I wouldn't do that. Once again, he had found me. There was no way this was just another coincidence. He had searched for me, or maybe just followed me around this whole time.

Telling him to leave me alone hadn't worked last time, so I was going to try something different. I started walking away, ignoring him and hoping that he would eventually grow tired.

"Ah? Where are you going?"

To my absolute terror and dismay, my a part of me crumbled to pieces as I felt a hand grasp my wrist from behind and preventing me from taking any other step further. The streetlights were already on now, brightening up everything except the eerie atmosphere in the empty park. I did my best to try and breathe regularly.

"Even though it was such a long time since I've seen you, you're already planning to go?" His voice sounded exaggeratingly hurt and dramatic, as if he didn't know of my currently absolutely terrified state and tried to be funny.

I swallowed words that tried to get out, focusing my best on trying to pretend that I was alone. I clutched the book in my hand and tried to force the sweat back into my skin.

I heard a low giggle behind me, and the hand around my wrist started to gently pull me backwards. "Hey, why aren't you saying anything? You're trembling so much~."

I just had to endure it a little bit more. Soon, he would sigh and say "hmm, you're no fun…" and walk away and everything would be alright again. I would walk home in peace, come home before my mum did, and I would never see him again.

That's what I truly believed for a minute.

"Well, that doesn't matter," he shrugged, and with a sudden tug, he started pulling me along with him. When I got the look of his back, it was indeed, non-surprisingly, his reddish brown hair and his black fedora.

"I'll take you somewhere fun," he added, making it fell like he did it to make me stop resisting.

I panicked, understanding that the silent treatment didn't work on him and that he was once more going to "take me somewhere fun".

"Stop! Let me go!" I yelled, roughly trying to pull my wrist out of his grip in a hysteric behavior. "I don't want to! Go away from me!"

He lets go of my wrist and I almost plopped down onto the ground at the sudden freedom. I intended to quickly get up and run, but when his captivating eyes met mine as he slowly turned around, I ended up frozen in place. Only movement my body allowed me to do was tremble like a newly born baby.

"Why are you trying to run away?" he asks quietly, suddenly a lot more intimidating than ever before as he crouches down over me. "Do I frighten you?"

The way he's placed before me blocks the view of the moon, casting a dark shadow over him. And yet, somehow, his eyes manage to glow threateningly as they stare into mine.

"No," I reply in a brittle tremble, knowing it's a lie far too well. His eyes narrow slightly, and I understand with uneasiness that he's not satisfied with the answer. "I... W-We don't know each other and… Y-You just… s-suddenly popped into my life and… took me to all these… places…."

When I don't continue, he tilts his head to the side and ads, "and?" without a change in his hard expression.

I flinch. "It's weird!" I automatically burst out without thinking, troubled and frustrated that he still isn't satisfied with my answer, and that he doesn't seem to understand what I'm trying to tell him. His penetrating eyes make it hard to talk, and I swallow down an imaginary lump of fear.

"What we did last time wasn't to your delight?" he asks.

I look away from his eyes, feeling cowardly again. "No…"

Suddenly he stands up. Now he doesn't just have a shadow over him, but the moon behind him makes him into a dark silhouette with lighted contours. He almost looks like he has a glowing halo, like he's divine.

Somehow in his dark face, I can see his lips roll into a soft smile. "Then, let me take you somewhere else."

"N-No! I don't even know your name-"

At first, I thought his hand reached out to hurt me, but when I opened my eyes, it was like an angel stood before me, wanting me to grab his hand so that he could help me up.

"My name is Raito," he said. "And I'll take you wherever you want."

I took his hand, letting it go as soon as my legs stood steadily on the ground. Biting my lip, I did one last effort to make him go away. "I want to go home…"

His eyelids sunk a little as I said that, but the smile is still there. The expression he now has reminds me of the soft smile you have while looking at a poor, weak little newborn kitten.

But when you look like that at a person, the soft smile looks more intimidating and creepy than warm.

"Then, I'll take you home."

_**Starting to finally get some action, am I right? I promise that I won't let five months pass ever again before updating this story, okay?**_

_**Absolutely promise…. **_


	7. I Won't Hurt You

_**Okay, so please read this because I gotta tell you something. **_

_**This story is told in two parts. Present, and past. What you've read up until how has been a flashback. **_

_**When you read this chapter, you may be given a fact that you didn't know before, and it may shock you. But don't worry! I'll explain it! **_

_**I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you this earlier.**_

_Somewhere in Japan._

_Present._

I slid all of the painfully yellow "Japanese Rules of Grammar", "Essential Japanese" and "Japanese – Express Yourself" books and papers down into my brown bag, glad to finally being another hour closer to getting some rest. With a small yawn, I take the bag into my hands and start to walk out of the classroom. It had been a rough day at literature class today with lots of grammar lessons and rarely any actual writing. We had gotten a lot of homework as well. I had been so tired during class that I had much unfinished work left to do at home along with my homework, so I wanted nothing more than to quickly walk home and finish all of it before going into bed.

I hadn't gotten any sleep that night either, and I doubted that tonight would be more promising.

"Harumi-senpai!"

I turn around at the sound of my name, stopping on my way to walk out the doors. "Yes?"

My eyes meets one of my juniors in literature class as she rounds the corner, coming running toward with a big pile of books piled against her chest, as she'd probably forgotten to bring a bag today as well. It seemed as if the younger ones had a lot of assignments to do at home, just as we did.

"Kaori-san? What's the matter? Why are you in such a hurry?"

She panted heavily as she stopped in front of me. "Oh, thank God I could catch up to you! I was shouting your name throughout the whole school, you know! Where you daydreaming again? You really are 'the girl who's always asleep'…"

My old nickname from school five years ago was still stuck on me even though I'd entered high school. It even reached this place about three years ago because of Minori.

She noticed my unpleasant reaction, and quickly continued.

"Well, what I wanted to ask you was… well…" She seemed incredibly bothered to say it all of a sudden and couldn't even focus her eyes on one thing. I noticed how she bit her lip, hands tied up nervously in each other as she struggled to get the words right. "I made plans today because I didn't know that…" She looked ashamed with herself. "I had cleaning duty today… All the others from my year has gone home already…"

I felt the awkward pleading in the air, and wanted nothing but for her to feel better all of a sudden. I didn't like to see her with that sweaty, stressed expression mixed with shame.

"It's okay," I said, smiling. "I'll do it for you today. There must be people waiting for you, so you go to them. See you tomorrow."

It must have been something important that she was going to do, because she shined up like a sun when she heard me, looking incredible relieved. It was dark outside, so maybe she was already late to whoever was waiting. "Thank you so much, senpai! See you tomorrow! You get some rest too!"

She bowed maybe ten times before she ran off waving, heading toward the doors that I had been on my way to walk out of just a minute ago. I waved back. When I saw her disappear through the door and out into the dark, cold winter night, I turned around and headed toward the staircase.

I didn't regret my choice. She had actual plans that I bet was a thousand times more important than my reason to want to go home. It was better this way, as I'd wanted to go home just to get some sleep. And I doubted that it was going to happen anyway.

I wished the cause of my sleepless nights would just disappear. I wished the thoughts circling around in my head as I finally got a moment of piece and quiet on my bed would vanish. But every time night comes and I'm alone with only my thoughts, I start to think about him. How spending two years of him would have such a big affect on my life.

That guy turned my whole life into a nightmare in just two years, and he's still tormenting me to this very day. When night comes, memories of him follow.

And even though five years have passed since I first met him, I still don't know his full name.

_Somewhere in Japan._

_Five years ago._

I wished so badly that I had insisted on going home alone just a little bit more. Letting him follow me home so far had only lead to an awkward situation where our feet softly tapping the ground was the only sound. Every now and then, I cast a peek up at Raito to see if he was feeling the same way as I was about the situation, but he didn't seem bothered by it the slightest. Why was I the only one feeling uncomfortable? Was he this used to walking girls he barely knew home?

I knew that it was a long way left to walk, and I couldn't take it anymore.

"Say…" I began awkwardly, looking at the gardens filled with red, pink and purple flowers that we passed. They would all soon whither, as it was already October. "What is your last name?"

He had only said "Raito" when I asked him. Normally, don't you politely say your full name when a stranger asks you?

The answer didn't come. I turned my head against him, leaving the flowers behind me. He looked up at the black night sky, observing the white specks that gave it a small, dim light. When he realized that I was staring at him, he came back to his senses and turned his face against mine. His eyes closed and a long, index finger was placed softly against his smiling lips.

He kept it there as he talked. "That's a secret~."

I placed my head to the side and gave him a puzzled look as he giggled. "But what should I call you?"

I realized too late that I sounded as if I was going to meet him several times in the future.

"What you should call me? I already told you my name, didn't I? Just calling me Raito is fine."

"Isn't that strange? We don't know each other and all…"

"Isn't our whole situation strange though?" _Ah, he actually admitted it himself. _"You can call me whatever really. I don't mind."

He looked really curious and excited about what I was going to call him after he said that. As if he wondered if I was going to pick some weird nickname, or what I was going to say. I didn't understand him at all. There was nothing to expect. I couldn't live up to his expectations.

"Then, I'll just call you Raito-san?"

There was no way I could refrain from using an honorific. He was maybe around five years older than myself, so it was only natural that I'd put "-san" after his name. Though I'd prefer to put it after his last name.

"Yes, Raito-san is perfect~."

That was the last thing said before the scene was returned to being silent and awkward. And also very frightening. This was the thing I had tried to prevent by locking myself into my house, and the moment I step out of it, this has to happen. Had he been waiting for a chance to get close to me? Had he observed me from outside my house?

I had been home for three days because of him, and missed both school and literature class. I hadn't even finished my assignment of writing a short novel based on that stupid picture the teachers had given me. I had absolutely no idea what to write.

"_LUST", huh? How do you write that? _I can't write stuff like that. I've got no experience and I definitely don't want to do any research. I'm not even old enough to.

"Hey, are you listening?"

I snapped back to it. Raito was looking at me with eyes that expected an answer from me, but I had no idea what to answer on. I felt a little embarrassed and flushed as I had to ask him; "What?"

His finger was pointing at a forest. "Let's take this way," he said in an excited tone that indicates without a question that it was something he'd planned for a long time. "It's a shortcut."

He wasn't wrong. It was a shortcut to my home, but I just never took it. The forest was thick and dark, so there was no way that I was brave enough to walk through it. I always took the longer way home, but at least it felt safe.

"How do you know that? How do you know where I live?" The question felt sore and dry in my throat, and I swallowed multiple times.

He shrugged, smiling with half-lidded eyes. "Well, there's not much I don't know."

Before I had a chance to protest, he had taken my wrist into his left hand and was dragging me down the narrow path of the forest. I struggled, digging my heels down into the ground and tugging at my arm for him to let it go.

"Stop, Raito-san!" He didn't listen. "I don't want to go here! Let me go! It's scary!"

His feet stopped when he heard the last words, making me almost fall back. "What, don't you want to get home quickly? This is the fastest way, you know. If anything happens, I'll protect you. So you don't need to be scared. Okay?"

_But you're the one I'm scared of. _

He continued walking further into the forest with me firmly held behind him. It hit me how much of a forceful person he is. He doesn't appear to be one with his light smile, soft touches and carefree tone of voice, but when his hand is tightly wrapped around my wrist like this, you can really feel it. His touches aren't always as soft as they seem to be when he smoothly and gracefully moves around.

Maybe we were halfway into the forest when he stopped.

"You're trembling," he said. "Are you scared?"

I tugged carefully at my wrist, like I was asking him if he could loosen up. "It hurts."

"I won't let go. Because if I did, you would run away, wouldn't you? And who knows what kind of person you'd run into."

I made a face, disagreeing. That's none of your business, I wanted to tell him. "I don't want to walk here. It's scary." I grasped all of my courage and added; "You're scary."

Something in his eyes made me want to back off and take back all the words I said down into the pit of my stomach again. Somewhere inside me, I almost sneered at his observing expression. He couldn't really be surprised. He couldn't really have expected me not to find it uncomfortable and scary, the way he was acting.

"You don't need to be scared. I won't hurt you."

I wasn't so sure about that. Because, yeah, I should definitely trust everyone who tells me they won't hurt me.

I was worried. His voice was softer and sweeter than whipped cream, but his eyes cold and cat-like in the dark. I didn't know which one of them was real, but I had decided long ago which one I should trust.

Raito knew that too, and his eyelids sunk down further in disappointment. He was so much taller than me, so having him look down on me from such a small distance makes his face covered in a dark shadow that his emerald eyes somehow manages to glow in. It's madly weird how the shadow fits him so well.

"Okay," he finally said with a gaze like knives. "If it's what you wish, I'll leave you alone."

Just a second ago, I had noted how he was standing so close to me (in fact, almost so close that it felt like he was leaning over me), but now I just got to see a quick glimpse of a dim figure becoming one with the shadows ahead before completely disappearing. Raito was gone. He had left me alone, and I hadn't gotten any time to make him change his mind.

It was strange. It was like he had suddenly just vanished.

And it made me realize that I didn't want him to do that.

"Raito-san!?" I called, twisting and turning around and trying desperately to try and see past the fog and dark. I repeated his name again, and another time. And just in case he might hear me this time, I repeated it another time again. "Where are you!?"

I was starting to shake madly, my legs unsteady and voice breaking here and there in the sentences. I wasn't moving, just turning around in the very same spot until I was close to tripping over my own feet.

It was so dark and quiet. Not a single noise from town reached past all the trees. My heart was beating rapidly with loud thuds against the walls in my chest.

I'm such a child.

This was why I never took this way home. I couldn't stand being in this forest, much less alone. You can't see if anyone attacks you here, but if you do see it, it's already too late. There isn't a sound reaching your ears or any light getting into your eyes. Everything is dark and abandoned, because no one walks here anymore. I remember faint memories of someone telling me stories when I was little, about how there were lots of murders taking place by a serial killer in this forest once. That must be why nobody wants to take the path here, that's almost overgrown, anymore.

I try again, and I start to cry by the sound of my own voice cracking. "Wait, Raito-san! Don't go!" The two words sound like a hoarse whisper. The tears are filling my eyes all the way up, making it even harder to see anything, before they flood down all at once and won't stop.

Like I've been used doing since I was a small child who would cry over every little letdown in her life, I crouched down to sit on my heels and wrapped my arms around myself to stop my body from its mad trembling. It never has, and it didn't this time either.

Raito really is better than no one at all.

"Please, Raito-san…" I pleaded in whimpering hiccups, shutting my eyes so that I don't have to try and see past the shadows tormenting me anymore. "Please don't go… Please come back… Please, please, _please…_"

I had heard no sound as warning when two arms appear and wrap themselves around me, embracing me from behind. It had been immediately after I'd begged him to come back, as if he had been standing behind me and just waited.

"See?" he murmurs into my ear, putting his chin on my right shoulder. "You need me."

His words stabbed me, making me feel like a really needy and dependent child – which, in reality, I was. When it all came around, I would even cling on the very same person that terrifies me to death.

But I was struck by how comforting the tight embrace around me is, and I unwillingly start to wish for him to hold me. I actually even surprise myself by the sight of my hands grabbing a hold of the part of his striped sweater that stuck out of the green hoodie.

"Wow, you're really shaking a lot," he pointed out. "Are you that scared of the dark? Did you really think I was going to leave you alone here?"

His eyes were glowing again as he watched me with that focused, observing stare of his. Something in it disturbed me. Because there was a strong touch to that stare. A sort of admiration in his devilish eyes made me shudder. It was as if he was amazed with the display he'd just seen in front of him, amazed by how much I needed him right there and then.

But he didn't do anything.

My hands held on to the soft fabric of his clothes tighter, afraid that he'd leave again. "Please," I muttered, still wet in my eyes and on my cheeks. "Please take me home."

He inhales a long breath, relaxing for a minute against my shoulder. "Of course."

We stood in front of my door. The rest of the walk home hadn't taken a long time, and I had never been more relieved to get out of that forest. Raito had insisted on following me all the way even though I'd told him that it wasn't needed. I hadn't asked him that to be nice, but because I wanted him to leave me. I had thought about starting to run as soon as we got out of the forest, but in the end, cowardly as I was and doubting my capabilities, I hadn't.

Raito didn't even leave when I turned around toward the door. He was standing behind me, and I wondered if he would even leave after I closed the door. What did he want with me?

I reached out for the door handle, but stopped myself in mid air.

"Say, Raito-san," I mumbled just loud enough for him to hear, still facing the door. I swallowed hard, ready to rush into my house if necessary, before I continued. "Why did you walk me home?"

"See it as an apology for last time." He giggled as I flushed and put my hand against my mouth, remembering the kiss. "Besides, little girls shouldn't be wandering around late."

The look on his face made me understand that he knew that I was years younger than him. He was looking, and even talking to me as if I was a little kid. I hadn't thought that he knew my age; since I couldn't in the world understand what he, who was probably around the age of seventeen, want with me – who's not even a teenager yet.

Could he be a paedophile?

I found myself quickly grabbing the door handle, panicked and horrified by the thought. I heard him chuckle behind me, and it made me hurry even more to unlock the door as quickly as humanly possible.

"Goodnight," he hummed, amused as he put his hands into the pockets of his brown pants, turned around and began walking away.

I bit my lip, wanting to curse myself out and ask for the Lord's forgiveness at what I was about to do. What I didn't do was that I didn't open the door and get into my safe room. No, instead, I let go of the handle and turned around, not yet satisfied with what I had decided to be our last encounter.

"There's no way that all our encounters has just been a coincidence!" I shout at him, making him stop in his tracks and turn his head around shrewdly in a way that reminded me of how the Cheshire cat moves. "I know that you've been following me around, watching me. Why?"

He tilts his head and adds a raised eyebrow to his smirk, looking amused and playful.

"Now why would I tell you that~?"

Two days had passed since that, and I hadn't seen the sight of Raito. And it wasn't because I hadn't gone outside like last time, because I had been going out many times. To school, to literature class, and just for the sake of being outside every once in a while.

I wanted someone to talk to, and the only one I had in mind for that was Minori, but I didn't dare talk about him again. I didn't want Minori to know that I'd met him – and not just once since she'd told me not to. Even though he was the one who forced me, I was feeling kind of guilty.

The brown strands of hair were twirled another turn around my finger, and I didn't realize how I was chewing on the end of my pen until the taste hit me full-force. I made a grimace and tried to scrape the taste off of my tongue with my front teeth. It's really hard to let go of an old, bad habit, huh?

I looked down at my empty paper again and sighed. The first row of the paper still had lots of visible traces left of the many rounds of sentences I'd used an eraser to get rid off, one after another.

It really was no good. I couldn't write anything involving adult-themed stuff even if I'd age by this desk until I was eighty. The teachers had reminded me yesterday, seeing that I was feeling distressed, that I didn't have to write any graphic details describing everything. They probably understood that this was hard for me to do, and even suggested that I'd take a new picture. I was the one who refused. I didn't want to give up on something like this. Because they didn't have downright sex in the picture.

They weren't even fully naked. The guy still had his shirt on when he leaned over the woman, and from the angle the picture was taken; you couldn't see the woman's breasts. It was zoomed in on only their upper bodies, so you couldn't tell if they were wearing pants – or if they were having sex or not.

I caught myself staring at how the guy was kissing her neck and looked away quickly, face heating up in a way so intense that I started looking around if anybody could see me. I looked back at the picture, trying to make it slam an idea into my head.

I noticed how the guy looked a bit like Raito from behind, with the tips of his reddish-brown hair reaching all the way to touch his shoulders, and some of it in the back even resting on it. It disturbed me. The woman he was pleasing didn't look a bit like me.

I realized what I had just thought and corrected myself. Thank god that the woman he was pleasing didn't look a bit like me.

She was blonde, her astonishing amber eyes almost hidden under her dark eyelids. The long lashes played out the part of a beautiful frame to the matching eyes. And from what I could see from under the guy, she had a couple of big, round breasts.

As I said, nothing like me. I stuck to the hope of still being only twelve, but I noticed how the rest of the girls in my age had started to develop.

I put my pen against the paper, starting to move it around.

I wondered where Raito was. I had checked my window multiple times the day before yesterday, yesterday, and today, but I hadn't seen him. Though I don't think I would see him even if he were there. He just didn't come off as the type of person who isn't good at what he does.

I sighed and continued to scribble on the paper.

Well, there's no wonder he's not outside my window or watching me anymore. He knows that I'm a little kid. I would never want to be together with – let's see, someone who is five years younger than me – a seven year old.

I stop to look at the paper, shrieking on the inside when I read what I have written. The first three lines where exactly as I'd planned, but after that, it started to derail. Raito's name was written all over it, and I was basically describing our meeting.

I held the eraser, but didn't do anything with it. I looked at it for a while again. It was thirteen rows that I had written, and that's the most I've managed to write today.

I thought some more about it.

_That's it, I'm keeping this. _

"_Yuka?" _

I was so unbelievably tired. I was up so late last night; I could barely stay awake in church this morning. God, I can't wait until school's over. But school hasn't even started yet and it's so many hours before I can get to bed. Then there's literature class today too. So many things to do. Everything is just like usual. Same things everyday. I'm so tired. I'm so bored. And I can't even decide which of those feelings are worse right now.

"_Yuuuukaaaaa?"_

It was Raito's fault. I hadn't seen him in over two weeks now and everything suddenly becoming so normal again all at once was making me so unbelievably bored. When did I become like this? Why did I have to become like this? Where did Raito go? Where was he?

"_Oh for fucks sake, YUKA!"_

I was hit in the side by Minori's elbow. "Oww!" It sounded more like a question.

"_Jeez_," she sighed out the word so loud that I thought the whole neighbourhood would hear. She was looking unbelievably annoyed with me, and I could immediately tell what she was going to say. "This is the frickin' reason why they call you 'the girl who's always asleep' in school! You're always goddamn spacing out and wobbling around as you daydream, like some damn drunkard!"

"I'm sorry," I pleaded, putting my hands up in apology.

"Sorry my ass!" She stops talking as she realized how loud she was shouting. She calms down and clears her throat. "Jeez, don't do this to me. I'm trying to fricking talk to you here. Why the hell are you so damn unfocused? You tired or what?"

"Yes, I'm tired," I say, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and rub my eyes. "My assignment from literature class was due to today – well, actually, it should have been turned in long time ago, but the teachers gave me more time since I'd been sick – and I wasn't done with it. I stayed up really late yesterday, finishing it."

"Ooooh~," she hums. Minori was the only person I'd talked about the assignment with and, knowing what it was, she couldn't help but be curious. "Lemme see, lemme see~."

"No!"

"Oh, come on! I wanna read it!"

"But I don't want you to read it," I tucked all the books she had managed to get out down into my school bag again. "Besides, it's really nothing special. There's nothing... erotic."

"I can't believe that you thought that I only wanted to read because of that!" She put the back of her hand against her forehead, dramatically closing her eyes as she talked. "Ah, what an awful friend you are! So cruel, Yuka-chan! You're breaking my kokoro-OH LOOK WHO'S THERE-"

I slammed my hand against her mouth. Of course I knew who was there. How could I have missed him? She didn't need to start screaming about him standing there a few meters away. God, was she ever careful in _not _embarrassing me in public?

He was standing with a couple of other boys on the other side of the road, in front of an old snack bar. All of them were wearing their high school uniforms, and they were laughing at something, but even though Minori talked very loudly, I knew it wasn't at us. They hadn't even noticed us yet.

My hand seemed to have reminded her that if she screamed, he would – yes, apparently – hear. I released her, and she leaned in casually toward my ear. "You know, I heard from my friend that he and his friends are going to have a party."

I always feel so left out when Minori mentions all the other friends she's got apart from me, some of them much older. She even manage to get people four years older than her to like her because of the way she seems so mature for her age – especially in appearance. "Why are you telling me that?"

Her face wrinkled into a confused expression. "Because you like him?"

"Ssssch! Besides, I don't think that matters. He's years older and goes to high school. Do you really think he'd invite any of the people from our school?"

"You can always hope. They have invited some girls from our year, actually. At least my friend said so." she shrugged.

We walked past them and into the school courtyard. "Minori, you and I are twelve." We got to the lockers, and I started to open mine with a deep sigh. "There's no way."

Minori was right beside me; ready to grab whatever she could get her hands on as soon as she could get her hands on it. I wasn't ready, and when I tried to stop her, she had already taken the letter from the inside of the locker, opening it.

She looked at the white little paper, then chuckled. "Wow, this guy compares his feelings for you with a heart attack. Neat."

I swept the letter out of her hands, stomach on fire with anger. "That's not nice! You can't just make fun of anyone's feelings like they're nothing, Minori!"

I wanted to add: "Besides, you shouldn't steal someone else's love letter."

"What? It's fine, isn't it? You get a ton of these each day, so I don't see why!" She was already peeking into my locker to see if there was any other. "And it's not like you're going to get together with them anyway."

"That's not the point." I sighed and closed the locker door, starting to go ahead to homeroom. Minori sprinted up to me, catching up. "Even if I can't return their feelings, I still respect them."

"Aren't you just an angel? I bet God's got you as his favorite."

I started thinking about Raito. _No, he hasn't. _"And God must be putting up a lot of time to forgive you for your sins. I can't believe you call yourself a Christian."

"Hey, don't drag my religion into this."

_Somewhere in Japan._

_Present._

For the second time that day, I went down the stairs and toward the door. I was glad that it hadn't taken so much time to clean her classroom. Even if there weren't anyone waiting for me at home, I still didn't want to go home later than necessary. It was cold outside, which would only worsen by the minute, but that wasn't the only reason.

I was still scared of walking home alone in the dark. My childish brain still imagined that he would appear.

"You just walked right past me. Ouch." I turn around with a flinch, startled by someone calling out to me out of the blue for the second time today. He was leaning with his arms crossed against the wall right next to the door, so I should've noticed him. "Well, I guess that's normal for you. You weren't paying attention again? Daydreaming?"

I gave him a glare when he referred to the nickname I told him long ago that I hated. The big, boyish grin on his face didn't leave however, so I turned around and began walking down the few steps of the stairs. I heard him stand up with the ruffle of his clothes, quickly, and start hurrying after me.

"Hey, Yuka, wait!" he shouted and caught up to me. "Look, I'm sorry!"

"What are you doing here?" I asked, rolling my eyes even though I was honestly curious.

He raised his eyebrows at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I came to walk you home."

I regretted rolling my eyes at him. I had met him two and a half years ago when he started attend literature class too, and we became friends after a while of writing together. He knew since long that I always hurried home because I didn't like walking in the dark, and he was only trying to help. "You don't have to do that."

"I don't do it because I have to," he said and held my eyes as we walked. "I do it because I want to. I've told you before, haven't I? I like you, Yuka, so I'd do these kinds of things for you whenever."

He'd told me this half a year ago. I'd told him that I only wanted to be friends because I wasn't looking for someone right now. His response had been; "I can probably bear to wait for you."

Whenever he mentioned it, like now, I'd start going red and look away. It was uncomfortable, and even though he did it pretty often, I swore that I was never going to get used to it.

We passed the park, walking quietly past the white fountain, and continued down the street until the town ended and neighborhoods with houses instead of flats and shops came.

"What were you doing in there all that time anyway?" he asked when we passed the yellow house that my best friend from over ten years ago used to live in.

I blinked a few times. "Oh… You were waiting…" He nodded, but continued to look at me until I realized that I hadn't answered his question. "Cleaning duties."

"I see." The houses on the left side, the one we weren't walking on, of the road ended and was replaced by trees. The trees eventually built up a forest. "Hey, are you cold?"

I stopped and looked at the forest for a while. I hadn't seen that forest in a while since I'd stopped taking this way home. I could almost see it in front of me. Two foggy figures, a boy and a girl, a twelve-year-old and a seventeen-year-old, walking into the forest. The short and little girl-figure helplessly dragged by the wrist by the guy. If someone else, who didn't know how the story ended, would've seen it, they would've thought he was going to rape her. Not that she would've been able to defend herself. She still can't.

It felt like I was looking at it for only a mere second, but I must have been staring a long time because I suddenly felt the guy walking me home pinch my arm. I flinched at it, scared for a second before I remembered that it wasn't _him. _

"Are you cold?" he repeated, and I immediately shook my head.

He smiled then, taking my hand and starting to walk. "Good."

I close my eyes and relaxed. That's right. There's nothing to be scared of anymore. The one walking me home here this time isn't like the last one.

This one would never hurt me.

_Somewhere in Japan._

_Five years ago._

School ended, and I was heading toward the place mentioned to meet in the letter. He was supposed to be waiting there, and I couldn't just never show up. Even if I already knew that it would end the same way as with the others. And I did have an hour or so until literature class was going to start, so there was no problem.

Even though I told everyone that I wasn't looking for a boyfriend, that didn't seem to spread in school – unlike my nickname.

I'd told Minori to go home without me. She'd insisted, but there was no way that I was going to have here there with me when I met up with the guy. I wasn't insensitive to guys' feelings, like she was.

"I'm sorry," I said to him when he was done talking, bowing. "I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now. I'm truly sorry."

I hated having to do these kinds of things. I looked up at him to find a disappointed expression. He looked sad too. Very sad. But when he saw that I was looking at him, he gave me a smile that made him look like he hadn't been devastated just a second ago. It made my insides twist and churn in a painful way.

"That's okay," he said. "I understand."

And then, he put his hands into his pockets and turned around to walk away. He stopped after a few steps, as if he was going to turn around and say something, but then he continued walking.

When he was gone, I turned around and walked as well. It was when I rounded the corner just a few steps away that I bumped into something. Confused, I backed off a little to see what it was. It wasn't until I heard the; "Oh, I'm sorry! You all right?" that I understood that it was a person.

I first thought that it was Raito, but he wouldn't have apologized or anything. And the messy, dirty blond hair sprawling out from his head in every direction also told me something else. Different eye color, too, I noted. Brown. Raito had green.

I realized far too late who it was. And when I did, I did it with a bang. "I-I-I'm so sorry for walking into you!" I shouted, bowing maybe thirty times with rapid heartbeats.

How did it end up like this? Why did I have to bump into him of all people?

"Nah, don't apologize. My fault. Nice to meet ya by the way," he said with a smile, putting his hands down into the pockets of his black hoodie. I had felt my heart miss at least ten beats when I noticed that it was him whom I'd just casually walked into, but it was missing a lot more now. I caught myself staring at the loose end of the shirt under his open hoodie, right by his collarbones. "I'm Noritaka Kobe."

"I know," I automatically answered at once, regretting it just as the words came out. I'd known in over half a year now, since I fell for him.

He saw my awkward, horrified expression and laughed a little. I wanted to groan and hide my face into the wall next to us, but I settled with just looking away uncomfortably.

"What's your name?" he asked, making the heart beating already worse than they already were.

He's not interested, I told myself. He just wants to be polite. "H…" The words were glued to my tongue and wouldn't come out, but I tried again. "Harumi Yuka."

He nodded in approval to it, looking at me from top to toe. He stopped on my face, leaning in close out of the complete blue. I felt a shriek at the back of my throat, and stumbled away backwards in panic.

"Hey, you're kinda cute," he suddenly said after he'd start laughing at my reaction, and I could tell by far now that I was blushing. My cheeks were flaming so furiously that I could bet all I owned on that I'd get burnt if I laid a finger against them.

He nodded again, eyes closed and smile smaller – like he was thinking about something, or considering. When he opened his eyes again after finding the answer, he was smiling differently.

I looked at the innocent smile and was just about to talk when he beat me to it. "I know this might be strange," he began, and I started sweating nervously when I started suspecting where this was going. "But do you want to hang out tonight? There's a party at my house, and I think you should come."

Who could ever resist that smile he was wearing. He looked innocent, slightly insecure and nervous. Just like a puppy. He didn't actually expect me to say no, did he? I tried to think of a good way to answer, but in the end, it just ended up as: "I'd love to, but I don't know when I'll come. I've got literature class after school."

"Don't worry about any of that. You can come whenever you want, and nobody will force you to drink if you don't want to."

He smiled again, and I smiled back carefully. Then I mumbled a small "goodbye" and walked away toward the door with his "goodbye" ringing behind me with a cheerful tone. I was sure that if I didn't get away from him quickly, my heart would jump right through my throat and out of my mouth.

He'd invited me to a party. Why had he done that? I was four years younger than him. Why in the word did he want a kid like me there? Maybe Minori's friend was right about they inviting other girls like me. There was no way that I could be the only one. Just one of the lucky ones.

This was the first time we'd had an official conversation, and he'd invited me to a party at his house.

I mentally sobbed at the thought that mum wouldn't let me. She always told me to come home straight after literature class, so I doubt she'd allow me to go to a place that has alcohol. But I wasn't going to drink anything, and mum and my step dad would be home very late, so it couldn't hurt, could it? It wasn't like I was going to get a chance like this again.

Four years apart or not, mum approving or not, I was definitely going.

_**Okay, so I know it is Wednesday and that I usually update on Sundays, but it's just that this chapter turned out to be about 7000 words – and that's a lot for me. So I'll update now, and then update another chapter on this on Sunday. **_

_**And please stick with me. I know that a lot of you may be unbelievably disturbed with the age, but I won't do anything that will disturb you further, okay? Just bear with me on this one, I know that I'm very unreliable and shifting in my shit.**_


	8. You're Safe Now

_**Okay, to all of you who reviews without an account (guests on ): you have to get accounts! Some of your reviews are really, really nice and I'd like to reply and thank you! **_

_**SSSS: Naww, you little cute cherry pie! Thank you! Calling my Raito realistic like that, you're making me blush! But I understand your feelings – I can't stand having a Raito falling in love in only three chapters either! **__***Screams in frustration with you**__*****_

_**TOMATOLOVER (nice name btw, are you Yuuma?): Oh, I promise you that it'll be a far way to go to get to the end, so don't you worry about it just yet! Ah, I knew it! I knew that you had to like Yuuma (the name gave it all away)! I like him to~… AND THAT YOU STARTED READING FEARSCAPE IS TOTALLY AWESOME, WOW! I don't know where the other books are! When I started reading them, they were there! But it seems like they've been deleted! XoX**_

_**And I'd love to play chess with Gavin! Thank you so much! 3**_

_**IIRY33: Well, whatever it is that you're saying, it's making me really happy! Thank you, nothing you could ever say could make me happier than praising me for writing a good Raito. Because he's an ass (I portray that part of him pretty well, ayy), and let's not sugarcoat that. He's too good in some fanfics – Raito would never do that! **_

_**Oh, I'll do my best not to let you down!**_

_**LEA: Naww, thank you~. I love this story, too! 3**_

_**I really should've thanked you guys earlier. I hope you're still with me so that you can read this! Thanks a lot to all of you who comment, they always have, and they always will, make my day and inspire me to write!**_

_Somewhere in Japan._

_28__th__ of July. Five years ago._

"Up next is Harumi-san."

I felt my nerves tingle as if they were being tickled with a small feather when the teacher mentioned my name, holding out her hand for me to come up in front of the whiteboard and read out loud what I had written. And I always hated being tickled. A lot of people had already shown the class their pictures and what they chose to write, and now it was my turn. One of them had a beautiful picture of a little boy with a broken teddy – and even though you'd think it'd be sad, the picture had soft lines and a lot of light in it. Listening to the girl reading her story had been interested. It had been about freeing yourself from a bad past and, according to her, the boy had destroyed the bear himself for this purpose.

I wasn't so confident in what I had written myself. The anxiety crawling around like an insect in my stomach was proof of that.

I didn't let it show when I walked up though, holding the papers in a relaxed hand and with a calm expression. I was burning on the inside. It wasn't that I had written anything that I wasn't ready to present to anyone, but presenting itself was the problem. I didn't like this part of literature class. I loved writing. I loved creating things out of nothing inside my head, letting characters whose voices I'd never heard play out dialogues and emotions inside my head. But I didn't love to read it out loud to someone else.

I put up the picture on the whiteboard using a blue magnetic button. It received some shocked expressions and quiet, discreet whispers. They were staring, and some of the boys at the back were wearing smug grins, looking at each other with raised eyebrows.

I started the story, talking as loud as I had been taught but a lot louder than I myself wanted. I had replaced Raito's name with he, his, and him. The blonde girl in the picture had been dedicated the names she, hers, and her. There were no names in the story, and they weren't needed. There were only two people in the story – no one else was ever seen or mentioned. She was just a normal person, and he was a demon. She was tempted by danger and excitement, and decided to approach him.

At first, the demon only saw her as a fun toy that he could play with for his own amusement. But as time flew by and she was still by his side, his feelings started to change. But while he gradually began to get feelings of love toward the girl, she only grew attached to the thought of taming him.

It ends with her dead body lying in flames and him standing beside it, watching. He was done with her. She had thought that she could tame the beast, but she had been wrong. She had thought that she had enough love for both of them and that it would make him change, but she had been wrong. Because he knew that it wasn't love that she felt for him. Nothing about her "love" was pure. She had only been feeling lust, and those feelings would never be able to make him good.

Of course, when I looked up from the paper, there were tons of surprised expressions. It made me feel uneasy about what I had written. I started to feel as if, maybe, I had missed the concept or maybe my picture didn't fit the story according to them. But when I looked at the picture, I could still see it. The blonde girl didn't look like there were any deeper feelings that she had toward the man kissing her neck, and the background was in all these fierce red, yellow, orange colors that flames are. The same flames I imagined her burning with in the end.

"That was really quite something you came up with," the teacher finally said after a while, beginning the wave of applause herself. "I hadn't thought that your story would be that complex, Harumi-san. You sure can see quite a lot of things happening through only this picture. May I ask you what inspired you?"

"Oh… Uhm…. A lot of things…" Why did I say that? I couldn't even come up with one thing. A lot of people were staring at me, and I was not going to say what really inspired me. "Mostly a story I heard when I was little…"

We were going to write a paper to our story with questions like those later. No doubts about it.

"I see. Okay, so up next is Hebiwara-kun."

_Somewhere in Japan._

_16__th__ of January. Present._

"It's okay now. I think I can walk from here."

I stopped walking, and it took another few steps for Tatsuo to realize that and stop as well. He turned around with a big grin on his lips, revealing a lot of his white teeth. _But no fangs, _I found myself noting. "Nah, that's fine. I mean, what would a gentleman be if he didn't walk you up to the door? Of course I'll follow you all the way."

I hesitated. "But we're even in my neighborhood."

"But we're not by your door."

He started walking again, his walk just as lazy and casual as his stance. I started walking too, looking at him while I did it. "You're really weird…"

He stopped walking, looking back again. I almost didn't even want to call it a walk, the way his legs stepped on the ground over and over. It looked more like he was floating forward, in some weird way. He gave my uneasy expression a short laugh, then continued walking – or floating – again.

"Why?" There was still a little bit of that laugh left in his voice. "Because I like you? Is it really that weird? From what I've seen, you've got tons of guys liking you out there."

"None of them has ever gone this far. You're not like them. You're…" I tried to find the right word, but gave up. "Different."

I was walking beside him now and saw that his smile faded away when I said that. He was looking upward, toward the sky, with his hands down into his pockets. He was quiet a long time before he spoke. "Dammit," he said, closing his eyes and exhaling a big breath that turned into a white cloud when exposed to the cold air. "I could really kiss you right now."

It was a good thing that he didn't look at me – not even after he said that. I could tell what being heated up in the cheeks meant, and I didn't want him seeing that. It was embarrassing to turn red at every little thing this guy said. Because he always said something. And he always did things like this that I didn't understand.

He must have waited a long time outside for me. I hadn't even been outside half the time as he must have been out, and I could already feel the winter cold biting at my fingertips and nose. When I looked at him now, I could see how red his nose really was, and how he was hiding his hands down the pockets to probably warm them.

I stopped myself before I opened the door to my house. "I want to thank you. For following me home." He was looking at me like he didn't understand what I was trying to thank him for. "You must have waited a long time for me. Thank you, Yukio-kun."

"Come on," he groaned. "We've been friends for 2 and a half years now, Yuka! You don't need to call me by my last name! I call you by your surname only, so it's weird if you won't do the same!"

"Tatsuo-kun?"

"Yes, but without the "-kun." Oh, and skip the O. Makes me feel kind of uncomfortable in some way."

I sighed. "Okay. I'll call you Tatsu, if that makes you so happy."

"It definitely does," he said and smiled in a way that made it look like saying his name was one of the best things I could've ever given him.

I opened the door, and I was just about to say good-bye and get in when it still felt like something wasn't right. "And I'll definitely repay you. I'll keep you company on the way home one day too, okay? I promise."

He shrugged. "You don't have to do that. Oh, but if that means that I can spend more time with you, then you better repay me."

That brought a smile to my lips. "Good night, Tatsu."

"Naww, hearing you say my name is so adorable~!" He was smiling as well. "Night, Yuka~."

He turned around and started to walk down the street again, and we waved to each other one last time before I closed the door and went up to my room to write on a story I'd been working on. And I couldn't get his face or voice out of my head for the rest of the evening.

_Somewhere in Japan._

_28__th__ of July. Five years ago._

It couldn't be helped. I was going to have to go to Kobe's party without dressing up or anything like it. I didn't have time to go home and change clothes now, not when it was already late. Luckily, I knew where Kobe lived.

I rushed down the stairs of the building that I had literature class in and ran toward the door. My hand was around the door handle, ready to pull it open as strongly and quickly as I could master, when I heard light steps behind me. I didn't think much about them. It was the voice that caused my body to freeze in place and refuse to open the door that I had hurried so much to get to.

"Quite an interesting story you had there," it said and there was a small chuckle following. "Really fascinating."

I didn't want to turn around, but I knew that I had to. Or that I would, eventually, be forced one way or another to do so anyway. I wasn't surprised when I saw him standing there, smiling softly in a way that almost made him look like an angel – how that is even possible, I didn't know. I was more surprised about the fact that he was here.

"Wha… What…" The words didn't come out. They seemed to only stumble around in my mouth, but never really going outside of it. "Wh-What are you doing here?"

"What, you ask? I came to hear your story. Say, if now the demon loved the girl, why did he kill her? Was it because he hated the fact that his feelings hadn't been returned and wouldn't cling to the hope that they ever would, or because he loved her so much that he hated her? Tell me, I'd really like to hear your answer."

"No!" I shouted, head not taking in any of the words he was saying. It was only focusing on the fact that he was here, standing in front of me. It hadn't thought that he would come back anymore, so why was he here? "You… You disappeared two weeks ago!"

Raito's eyes were glowing again, and the angelic atmosphere around him was replaced by something dark and very… threatening. "I never disappear."

How was I supposed to respond to that? I was pressed against the wall, but he wasn't touching me. It was like there was something invisible holding me against it so tightly that I couldn't move a finger, and it wouldn't let go. My back was pinned against the door so strongly that it felt like I would go through it. It all made me feel like a trapped animal, and Raito was the huntsman.

Raito had said earlier, when I was still too fed up with him in front of me that I wasn't paying attention or even listening, something about my story. It hit me when Raito's words were replayed in my brain. "You were listening?"

His smile was playfully still there as he gave me a slow nod, still holding my eyes with his. "To every word."

That troubled me a bit. I didn't know if he could figure out that I'd gotten a lot of the stuff in there, and a lot of inspiration, from him, but I didn't want him knowing that. I swallowed down a lump, but it got stuck in my throat. "You didn't come here to listen to my story. What did you really come here for?"

He got a serious expression now. He was still smiling a bit, but it wasn't out of the playfulness anymore. And he was looking at me, and I finally got a clue on why his penetrating stare always made me so uneasy. It always felt like he was looking right through you and could tell all your secrets that hid in your head. It felt like he was one of the people impossible to lie to, and his eyes made you feel somehow robbed and naked.

"I'm a little worried about you," he said, and I think that my shock was visible and obvious. "You shouldn't go to that guy's place."

_He was listening to that, too!? _

I felt my nails digging painfully into my palms, but I couldn't stop clutching my hands into fists. He was grinning again, maybe because he noticed that.

"Why? What does that have to do with you?"

"It has everything to do with me."

"_No_! It _doesn't_!" I swallowed again in an attempt to make the lump go down, but it was stuck. Biting my lip to calm myself down and not scream anymore (because screaming was the least thing that was going to make the situation better), I freed myself from the invisible-something that had pressed me against the wall, and opened the door. "Please leave me alone."

I got out the door and ignored the "have fun~" from inside. I was already in a hurry and now I'd wasted time on him. Kobe's apartment wasn't far, but it was in town and I was more worried about having to walk around there at night. You never knew if you could run into someone else like Raito.

_No, _I corrected myself. _There's no one out there like Raito._

I finally found the apartments. White and grey, rather expensive, flashy with big balconies, and really many of them. I had driven past these a couple of times when I was little – it was on the way to my grandma – and always stared up at the giant buildings with eyes glowing with admirations. My mum made jokes about them being so tall that they went all the way up to God, and I had taken her seriously.

I took the stairs up to the 9th floor plan and knocked on the first door to the left, like Kobe had instructed me to. The door opened, revealing two guys that I had seen hang around Kobe, the one standing closest to me bigger than the one behind who was mostly just tall. It wouldn't surprise me if I found out that he lived in the gym. Either way, both of them were very good-looking. Most of Kobe's friends were.

"Ah? Who's this tiny girl?" The big one said, and I noticed a little bit of American accent when he talked. Like he always had this small curve on his tongue at the end of every word.

The other guy reached out a hand past the big guy and pushed the door open further, gesturing for me to come in with a small smile. "Must be one of Kobe's. He likes 'em that way, you know."

The big guy moved, making a passage in for me. I nervously thanked them quietly and walked in, hearing them close the door as soon as I was out of its way. I didn't hear any music anywhere and there was barely any people that I had to push myself past. Wasn't at all what I'd imagined a party to be like. Or had I just been wrong all along?

I took careful steps forward into the long corridor and heard the other two follow behind me. I didn't dare open any of the doors on my sides, but just went with the flow and walked forward to what I think was a living room.

"Why does he like them young though?" the bigger guy asked, continuing his earlier conversation with the other one as if it had never been interrupted.

I wrinkled my nose a bit at his words; you could really hear the "she's just twelve" in his tone. My expression soon turned blank when we got closer to the living room and I saw that there were several big things lying around on the floor inside.

"Oh, you know…" My eyes went wide with shock as I saw what it was. _Girls. _"They're less likely to tell anyone."

I couldn't move. I was standing at the doorway to the living room, staring at the five, maybe seven, bodies spread out over the floor. None of them were wearing clothes. Some of them were shaking, some just twitched every now and then, and some didn't move at all. Pieces of their clothing were splattered around beside them, torn and tattered.

"Ah, you finally came, Yuka-chan." The sound of the light voice led my eyes to wander over the room and up on one wall that a black-haired, thin and tall, guy was leaning against. His arms were crossed and he was looking at the floor at first, but when I looked at him, his face came up to meet mine. There was a little girl, maybe about the same age as me, lying naked right by his feet. "Was literature class fun?"

I backed into something hard blocking the way back to the door and saw Kobe chuckle a bit. I turned around to meet the grinning faces of his two friends, and before I had the time to do anything at all, they grabbed each of my arms and pulled me down on the floor.

I started to scream as loud and strongly as I could in hope of someone, anyone hearing me. When one of the guys' hands covered my mouth, I started to kick and try to throw punches instead to hit one of them. It didn't work, and Kobe was hovering over me now with his hands reaching out toward the hem of my skirt.

"Keep quiet, okay? We don't want to hurt you."

That wasn't true. Every one of the girls in the room was covered with red and blue bruises that they'd probably gotten when they fought back. Kobe and his friends had raped them, and they hadn't tried to be careful. If they hadn't wanted to hurt people, then they wouldn't have done all that.

"Don't scream, Yuka-chan. It'll feel good soon." Putting in his every effort, he managed to rip the skit off of me. Taking it off wouldn't be possible because of the way my legs were kicking around, and I figured that had been how the other girls' clothes ended up ripped on the floor as well. "Oi, Toga, cover her mouth better. Someone will hear."

It started being hard to breathe for me. Not because I couldn't breathe through my mouth, but because I was having a panic attack. I couldn't move my arms at all when his friends held on to them like that. My chances of getting out untouched started to narrow down by every minute. Kobe's hands felt like they stained and infected every place they touched – not at all what I'd imagined them to be.

He grunted when one of my kicks managed to hit the left side of his face. It hurt for him, but it wasn't strong enough to get him off. "Dammit, Choki! Hold her legs down, too! She's fucking kicking me! There's no fucking reason for both of you to hold her down by the damn arms like weak fucking idiots!"

One of them, Choki I supposed, gave my arms over to the other guy and started to crawl over toward my legs. But Choki was the bigger and stronger one, so the thin guy was the one left to take care of both my arms and mouth. Now when they weren't two anymore, I broke my arms free from the guy named Toga's one hand before the gibber one could get to my feet. I turned myself around, head now facing the living room and feet facing the hall, and kicked Toga as hard as I could. I did the same thing against Choki, all as quickly as I could, and started to get up to run.

"You damn bitch!" I heard Kobe shout and grab my leg before I had even gotten fully up and started to run yet. He gave it a rough tug, and I was back with my back against the floor. I tried to kick him, but he had one of my legs in his grasp and could easily avoid the other one.

Then he suddenly stood still with his hand not moving in place. There was something behind him, looked like a big shadow from my point of view. It was holding onto the wrist of the hand that he had my ankle in, and it looked like his hold was tight and painful, because Kobe let go of me.

I stared at the tall figure, and couldn't tell who it was until it spoke two words to me.

"Go hide."

It was Raito, and although I didn't trust him and was now both shocked and filled with both fear and panic, I did as I was told. Raito and Kobe was blocking the way to the door, and the two other guys had started getting up as well now, so I had no other choice than to run past all of the limp bodies in the living room to get away. I ignored the screams and groans behind me and didn't look back on my way. I opened the first door I could get to, got inside quickly and sat down with my back glued to the white walls next to the entrance.

I brought my knees up to my chest and put my forehead against them, feeling my face burn and my eyes water. I still had trouble to breathe; I couldn't even remember if I had taken any breaths the latest minute, but I tried to begin slow and long inhales. It was hard. The bathroom didn't have any windows that I could shout for help through, and the darkness was so thick that it even hid my hand when it was right in front of me.

That only made me even more worried and panicked.

Lots of agonized screams from outside started to come through the crack of the door, tearing into my ear and becoming ten times louder in my brain. I couldn't register any that belonged to Raito.

What was happening outside? What was he doing to them? What would he do to me?

Then, the screams suddenly stopped. All of the coughing, grunting and gasps for breaths were gone too. It felt like it was quiet for hours when I was sitting there, head covered by my arms and new tears flowing over right after the previous.

Someone turned the door handle down and pulled the door open slowly, streaks of light entering the pitch-dark room. My heart was beating rapidly as I waited to see whom it was that stood in the doorway to the bathroom, even though I already was sure of that matter.

"You really are a stupid girl. I told you not to come here, and look what happened." The door opened fully and in came Raito, looking down into my teary eyes without a single expression on his face. "You should've listened to me."

He gave me a blank stare. I was staring at him too, and even though I was conscious of how wide my eyes was, I couldn't stop. He was standing at the doorway, the light from outside of the bathroom shining on him in a way that made him weirdly looking like an angel. Even if the deed that I knew he'd just done was everything except divine.

I started to cry even worse. He walked over to me and wrapped two arms carefully under me, one under my knees and the other one against my back, and lifted me up. I found my panic coming rushing back, building up for an attack. I didn't want anything less than to be touched by a man right now. The feeling of being stained and poisoned everywhere was circling inside my head again, but I couldn't move. I didn't dare to do anything against Raito now. I just laid there, body stiff and having trouble to breathe.

"It's okay," he whispered and started to walk. "No one will hurt you anymore. You're safe now. Focus on taking slow breaths. I understand that you don't want to be touched, but just bear with it for now."

I tried doing as he said and took slow, shaky breaths that eventually got better and bigger after I got a little used to where I was, held in Raito's hands. I wanted to adjust myself, because it wasn't fully comfortable, and moved a little. I discovered that Raito were wet in several places. I couldn't see what color the liquid was, because Raito was wearing black. The stains were everywhere in different shapes and sizes, all of them warm and very sticky.

My heart went up into my throat as I began thinking, and worrying, of what it could be. But I decided to kept quiet and bear with it.

We got out to the living room again, and the moment we started to get close to the hallway where we'd been earlier, Raito's right hand gently pressed my head into his chest, so that I couldn't see.

"Don't look," he said.

I swallowed hard again. Why didn't he want me to look? What had he done to Kobe and the other two? Even when we passed the hallway, I still couldn't hear any sounds of breathing or painful groaning. It was just quiet.

He allowed me to see again once we were out of the apartment. When we got outside, I was still in his arms.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sounding and looking worried. I breathed out calmly and tried to process what had just happened. Nothing about that was calm, and the more I thought about it, I couldn't be either.

"Yes. Thank you. Can you put me down? I can walk myself." I talked like a robot, making an exaggerated pause after every short sentence. I wasn't okay at all; I was shaking madly, it almost felt like I would slip out of Raito's hand because of that.

He just answered with a short, relaxed "of course" and put me down, a smile softly placed over his lips. It was such a small smile, I would have seen it if I wasn't paying attention so closely.

Once I was with my feet against the ground again, my legs started telling me about how they couldn't support my weight right now. I tried to walk, but just stumbled forward and so close to falling after every step that it was ridiculous. My first thought when I saw dark spots hitting the ground was that it had started to rain, but I was wrong. I hadn't realized it until now, but I was still crying heavily. Like a child. Except that this time, I had every right to.

"I'm going to the police," I told Raito for some reason, voice hoarse and twisted into a whimper.

"Can I come with you?"

His smile was still hidden, but I now knew that it was there. I was quiet for a minute, hesitating. But whom was I fooling? I knew the answer from the beginning. There was no way that I could do anything alone right now, this late and in this state. I didn't _want _to be alone right now.

"Okay," I finally said and wiped away a couple of tears in my eyes, but new ones came right away. It hurt so badly.

My eyes were sore and burning from crying so much, but it didn't hurt half as bad as everything else I had to take with me from today. All those girls were still inside that room; I wanted to hurry to the police as quickly as I could.

"Then, allow me to take you to the police."

Why was he smiling his charming, gentleman smile right now, of all times? This was the least fitting time for it. He wasn't taking me home; he was taking me to the police. I didn't want his smile right now.

"Thank you."

_**Okay, so a lot of stuff happened in this chapter. A LOT of stuff. Hope you're still there, after all I put you through with… Ahaha… We've got a lot more to go…**_

_**Feel free to leave a comment, even if it's a bad one. I am ready for hate! **_


	9. I Would Do Better Without Him

_**Yo. Long time no see, and I figured that I should probably give you guys a chapter here. I kind of feel like I was rushing things too much when I first published this (i regret being in such a hurry with everything and now planning stuff out until now) and didn't really get in everything that I wanted, but I'll try to make the best out of it and all that. **_

_Somewhere in Japan._

_31__th__ of July. Five years ago. _

I had barely been able to sleep for the past three days since that happened. My mum and stepdad were really worried about me, and my dad had even started to call me every day. He always began with asking if I was okay, what the police officers had wanted to talk about today, if there was anything he could do, that everything was going to be all right, and so on.

Over the phone yesterday, I gathered some courage and asked why he hasn't paid me a visit yet. He seemed confused and didn't really understand, but I swallowed down a lump of nervousness and asked him if he had sent me any gift or present in the mailbox recently. And instead of asking if I'd liked the flower or managed to figure out what it meant, he had responded with an apology and acted a little bit defensively.

"I'm really sorry, dearie." He'd gotten it from mum, and the old habit of calling me by that name still stuck, even though my parents had separated years ago. "I've just really haven't had the time to send you anything yet. But I'll definitely make sure to find you the prettiest little thing that I can find here in America! I promise, dearie."

I'm not sure how I'd felt when he told me that. It was just kind of empty, a weird and uncomfortable knot down in the stomach. Because it worried me. I had been so sure that it had been dad and was so disappointed when I didn't hear anything from him after the flowers. And now it wasn't him.

It was eerie and very creepy, putting me in an awful situation where I could never feel at ease. As if there was always someone observing me as soon as I made a movement, creeping around every corner and under every little stone. I even worried that someone was reading my mind sometimes and was left feeling incredibly invaded and paranoid. My therapist had told me that it was just a part of what I was going through now, and completely normal for me to be experiencing.

It took everything he had to make me talk to him. My mum and stepdad really wanted me to go see someone, and finally "convinced" me to do it yesterday. So I had only talked with him (Mr. Hays) twice so far, and I was still debating with myself about whether or not I should open up. I wanted to, because he was a really nice person, but something about him made me want to back away. I mentioned this to mum, but she dismissed it and said that it probably was because he was a man or something.

She was right, I didn't like men anymore. In fact, I couldn't even stand them. Their hands felt similar to an animal's poisonous fangs, stabbing and staining everything they came in contact with. Leaving only sickness, destruction and death. I saw them in a different light from what I used to. There was just something about them that scared me now in a way that I had never been able to understand before. They seemed bigger and more intimidating, and it was like I finally understood what they were capable of. Their aggressive presence made me cringe, and although I didn't show it on the outside, it caused me to become a little bit hysterical and panicked. The air disappeared from my lunges and my legs wouldn't listen. I couldn't breathe or move and all I wanted to do was scream and cry.

I hadn't told my mother that yet. I didn't want her to know about it, frankly because of the way I was feeling toward her husband. The mere thought of him being close to me, or anything the like, caused a special sort of nausea boil up inside. I hadn't told that to anyone actually. Not even Minori.

She had been one of the first people to arrive at the police station three days ago. When she'd first found out everything that had happened, she had been trebling and hugged me for what felt like a series of hours (the worst ones in my entire life) while shedding tears all over me. I had stopped crying by then. All my last tears had come and gone after I'd told the police what had happened to me and been told to wait, all alone.

Raito had told me that he would follow me to the police, and he had. But once being outside of it, he'd stopped. I asked him why he wasn't moving anymore, and he responded by locking eyes with me as he put his hands down into the pockets of his trousers.

"I won't follow you any further than this," he'd explained straight into my red, sobbing face with a cold little smile washed over his face. "This is as far as I go."

He proceeded with explaining to me what I was going to do now, giving me exact orders and putting words and sentences into my head that he meant for me to tell the police. I tried to ask him several times, but never once did Raito do any attempt to answer why he wasn't coming in with me after all that he'd done so far. The last thing he did was forcing me to make a promise, giving my word to him.

He made me swear on my life that I would never mention him to the police.

_Somewhere in Japan._

_19__th__ of January. Present. _

"No, but I seriously think you should go for him," Minori said as soon as we'd gotten out of the white marble building.

I slowed down. Turning my head exaggeratingly to the side, I gave Minori the most questioning look that I could manage. She slowed down as well, returning my gaze with the exact same facial expression as I had. She opened her mouth, and you could hear in her confused tone that she had absolutely no idea what I was staring at her for. "What?"

"No, it's just that… You know. We just got out of church. We haven't been talking about it at all today, so where did that suddenly come from?"

She started walking again, almost in relief that it wasn't anything serious that I was questioning. At least not serious for her. I followed after, walking quickly.

"I'm just saying. He's the sweetest guy you've met so far, and wow, talk about dedicated. He does pretty much everything for you. Like, seriously, you're the world for him. It's almost a little weird, but it's cute so who cares."

"So you think I should go out with him?" I asked carefully. Minori loved to talk about this, but guys and all just made me insecure, awkward and nervous. Talking about them did pretty much the same.

"Well, it certainly wouldn't hurt, would it? I think you should try it out, yeah."

A small part of my lower lip went between my teeth. "I'm not sure. It's kind of weird and I don't think that I'm at all ready."

"Yuka, you're a smart girl. I know that you like to study and that all you want to do is write stuff, but you've got to go out. It'll be good for you."

I didn't say anything after that. Minori kept babbling about how she'd love to get a nice guy like that (someone completely different from her uncaring old boyfriend), but I didn't really pay attention. It was hard to understand why she wanted me to go out with boys so much. She'd never mentioned it before and if anything, she'd just pushed them aside. Maybe it was just Tatsuo's case being special? But even so, it was still a little pushy.

"It would also cause you to be a little more social-" Minori stopped halfway through the sentence and stood still al of a sudden, looking with positively surprised eyes at something. "Oh, look whose here!"

I looked up in the same direction as here. He stood leaned against the wall, right next to the entrance of the library. He looked up as well, straight at me. He got the same happy surprise on his face as Minori had and raised a hand to wave at the both of us.

_Somewhere in Japan._

_Five years ago. _

"You have a guest, dearie!"

My head popped up from the drawing I was currently working on for an art class (that I took outside of school every now and then). It was an assignment where we were allowed to draw basically anything as long as it contained both watercolor and crayons, and we even had many weeks to finish this, but I still had to work extra. This was because I still had no idea what to draw with a paper so white and unused it was horrific. My inspiration had vanished completely and I was left a little annoyed and frustrated at this.

The door opened, without anyone knocking (which made me realize at once who it must be), and in came Minori. She wasn't smiling or making any sort of weird or emotional expression like she always used to wear. Instead, her eyes and the relaxed corners of her mouth hinted at a serious guise.

"Hey," she quietly said and sat down beside me on the bed. We hadn't seen each other since that time three days ago.

"Hi," I awkwardly responded.

It was quiet for a while, a painfully long one. I sat there, keeping my sweaty hands clasped together on my lap. Her hands were positioned under her thighs, and I knew that she only sat on them like that when she felt awkward or uncomfortable. It made my situation even worse.

Finally, she opened her mouth, but what she said wasn't at all pleasing. "I managed to get some information about Kobe and his friends' victims. They're all currently at the hospital; some with serious injuries and even dangerously close to death." She swallowed hard and continued, a dark distaste glowing in her brown eyes. "It seemed as if those disgusting bastards had been luring girls in and raped them a lot of times before as well, but it had never been as brutal as this time. They usually just threatened them not to tell anyone, and they didn't dare doing it until now."

She stopped to swallow again, even trembling a bit. I could tell that what she was telling me wasn't the only thing she'd found out and was very upset about this whole thing. I was feeling the exact same thing.

Her head suddenly swung to the side, her hateful eyes staring deep into mine. "Some of them were only around 10, Yuka. Can you imagine the things those sick psychos have done!?" Her voice was broken.

I was at a complete loss of words. This was something that I'd had no idea about, mainly because I had been too cowardly to try and listen to what had really happen. I hadn't wanted to know the truth or realize what had really going on and what I'd really seen that night, and now I felt close to throwing up on the pastel blue floor.

I decided to get out of my hole and face the real world. I hadn't tried to understand or get to know about Kobe and the girls he'd hurt, but now I was definitely going to get answers on all of the questions that had circled around in my mind the past days.

"What happened to Kobe?"

The words just slipped out, and I remembered how misunderstood they could come out way too late. I didn't want Minori thinking that I was still in love with Kobe and concerned with where he was and what he was doing, I was just curious and really hoping that he got what he deserved. In no way was I feeling compassion or understanding for him, and I wanted to slap myself for sounding so misleading.

Minori's first expression was of pure disgust and confusion, but it slowly changed less mortified as she stopped staring at me and faced forward. It was a little more distant now, her eyes, and a lot more horrified. She wasn't staring at me anymore, but into complete nothingness.

"They're hospitalized," she explained shortly, but I could tell that there was actually a lot more details that she knew about.

I felt an ice-cold chill coursing through me, memories flooding back around in my mind. I recalled the acute, chapped screams surging through the creaks of the bathroom door, heavy crashes reaching me by vibrations over the floorboards. The way Raito forced my face into his chest, so that I couldn't see anything of what he had done, while he carried me out came to mind. I realized that in reality, I had no idea at all about what he'd done to them. I hadn't even known if they were alive, which should be the thing I would first be concerned about.

It just never occurred that he could have actually killed them.

"How bad is it?" I asked after a little while of thinking.

Realizing once again how misunderstanding I could be, I wanted to slap myself. But I was absolutely not worried about what had been done to Kobe (which it might've looked like). I was only a bit curious and genuinely concerned about the person who'd done it. What he was _capable_ of doing.

Minori had known this question was coming, but she still looked a little bothered by it. She definitely knew a lot more than she wanted to. "I've gotten information about a lot of things. A couple of broken bones here and there, a lot of blood, bruises, all sorts of bone fractures, and abdominal injuries. I mean, sure, they deserved it and all, but to tell you the truth, it was quite damn horrible."

I felt like throwing up after she'd rambled up her list, checking each off with her fingers going down one after another. She didn't look so comfortable either, and I was sure that it clearly was a lot worse than she was telling me. She definitely knew about details, and I couldn't help but wondering _how _much she knew and where she'd gotten it all from.

"Which makes me wonder," she mumbled, continuing. "About that guy who helped you."

Now here's where it gets funny. Raito had made me swear not to tell the police about him. Of course, I couldn't just say that I had been the one to fight them all off (it wouldn't make any sense because Kobe and his gang would definitely not agree with that), so I was allowed to tell them about someone who had come to my rescue.

I was told to explain how a person close by had heard me scream. He had stormed into the room and beaten all the guys up (apparently, I had been saved by some kind of boxer or street-fighter), telling me that there was no need to be scared and that he was going to save me. He had then proceeded with keeping me company and made sure that I got to the police, but was in too much of a hurry for something and run off right outside the station. I had never seen him before in my entire life, and he hadn't told me his name, address or anything that could help me identify him. It had been too dark for me to clearly see his face, but I told them that he had blond, short hair and brown eyes.

I swallowed. "What about him?"

"Don't you think it's a little weird? I mean, don't get me wrong – it was really fortunate that he was around, but I just can't understand how he just disappeared. Your mum told mine that the police has no idea where or who he is. And they've been searching around for him, putting up posters and calling out to him in the news."

I felt my mouth getting dry as she continued to talk about how strange it was and that nothing was adding up at all. I tried not to say anything, because I feared that if I did, I would accidently reveal something. And maybe that was the right thing to do, but I didn't want to. Something was holding me back, something that I didn't understand. Raito had been very serious when he ordered me to keep quiet about him, and after having him save me like that, it felt wrong for me to betray his trust.

She finally quieted down, sighing as her head slowly shook. "Something odd is definitely going on here. Why won't he come forward? Is he afraid of something? It's like he never existed."

She bumped my arm with her elbow when I didn't answer, and I turned to receive a meaning glare. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

She was giving me that look, and I just knew that she was suspicious. Minori had always been good at that. She'd just always had a natural talent when it came to knowing that someone, mostly me, was keeping something from her. In all reality, it was no use trying to continue with the secrets anymore. But just this time, I had to.

"It's just that the more I listen to you, the more I realize that you're right. Completely right, actually." I intentionally sighed and stared out into nothing, pretending to be lost in thoughts. "It's so strange and weird and it's driving me crazy. I don't understand how this all could've happen, and much less why the person saving my life won't show up. It's so frustrating."

My voice cracked a bit at the end, and I managed to make Minori feel a little bit guilty for giving me that accused look earlier. It may be a little unexpected, but I had always been quite the good liar. People tend to mistake me for the opposite (even Minori), and that makes it even easier for me.

I felt just as guilty as Minori though. I didn't usually lie if I didn't have to, because lying is a sin. It's wrong and definitely forbidden; especially since I always say that I hate liars. Sitting here and telling all these stupid lies straight to Minori's face made me feel like a hypocrite.

"If only I'd seen what he looked like. Or asked for his name. Or… something. I wished that I could at least recall a single little helpful thing about him, but I can't. I was stupid and everything was going so fast, I wasn't paying attention."

Minori hugged me then, making my heart crumble to pieces in my lies. There she was, feeling sorry for me as I told lie after lie in order to keep a promise to a complete stranger who had mostly only installed terror inside me. What was I doing?

She held me there for a minute, telling me that it was fine; that it wasn't my fault, and that everything was going to be alright.

Minori left after another hour of slowly going back to an ordinary conversation and casual talking. I cursed myself throughout the whole night and wanted to punch myself in the face for being so stupid. Wasn't I supposed to be one of those smart girls? Wasn't that what my mother took pride in?

This is Raito's fault. He's making me into some sort of idiotic fool. I would do better without him.

I definitely shouldn't see him anymore.

_**Yes, there you have it, folks. Four weeks has passed since I last updated anything, and this is what I come with. I know, and I'm sorry. It's just that, right now a lot of things are happening and I'm starting to question absolutely everything in my life! Well, mainly my fan fictions.**_

_**There's this dilemma. I feel like I rushed things too much and didn't plan ahead enough before I started writing, and I've been changing my mind about so many things too many times. There's hardly no logic and I'm not pleased at all! It's like I want to start over and do it all again, but it doesn't seem fair to you guys. And parts of me don't want to delete all this either… I'm really conflicted, and maybe it seems ridiculous? Idk. **_


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